A Solo Valentine

Maybe my body is the topic for this week. Maybe tomorrow I will let it live it’s usual non-Internet life.

But in follow-up to yesterday’s post, I want to write a short love-letter to my body.

Dear Body,

Since you came into this world, and your parents were given 15 lasagnes to eat by loving church friends, you have been under a sort of attack.

Despite Italian heritage it turns out pasta is not your friend, and neither is pasteurized milk in large quantities. I’m still in denial about the tomato sauce, but I’m sure you know what the truth is.

Anyway, from being a colicky baby, and a redhead with an odd suite of genes, you have had it kind of rough. Dear stomache [sic] you are a trooper.

Despite my dislike for doing anything besides reading, when I got you out the door, you were actually pretty co-ordinated. I’m sorry the only thing I cared about in the Summer Kid Olympics was the pie-eating contest. (Stomach, man, my bad.)

And when I took up softball and kept pitching despite the fact that it hurt me, I’m sorry. I should have done my own research but Google was still new then, and I didn’t get much computer time.

Still, I should have listened.

Lately, I think, we’ve been on the same page a lot more. Loosening up a little with yoga and belly dance has made some good headway on repairing our lost trust. You’ve done a really good job with what you had to work on.

I’m sorry about all the acidic coffee. And the sugar that keeps you below-par.

I’m already working on that. Your input has been very valuable.

And you know, I do appreciate you. Redhead genes: I appreciate the way though my skin burns under the sun, you do your best to tan a tiny bit anyway. That though I have a low threshold for certain kinds of pain, I have a high threshold for some others.

That my hands have always been easy to train to do new things, and that sports have never been as frustrating because of my eye-hand coordination being pretty good. Thanks for be quick to build the muscle I need.

I appreciate that I’m just about the right amount of tall (especially after improving my posture). That my mind racing has brought me to this place of being a writer and coach. And that when my wisdom teeth came in it closed the gap in my front teeth–but not all the way, because I’m used to that.

For being able to keep going long after I would have guessed I was done exercising. For putting up with strange foods and not being actually allergic to much of anything.

For showing the lineage I’m otherwise not that close to culturally, and helping me realize I’m different from the American norm early.

To the rest of our lives together!

~Love, Bethany

Beauty, Intangible

It’s something I’ve written about before, I’m sure, but I’m still thinking about it.

I’m putting together a lovely box of essential oils, essential-oil products, and gifts for this program, Bone Deep.

It’s a two-fold thing, taking its theme from that old saw “beauty is only skin deep”.

If only. There’s an implication “Therefore it is unimportant, and no one should care!” There is no question that paying less attention to external beauty would be nice, especially for the poor kids getting jaw-shaving surgery (among other things) in the K-pop industry.

But it also clashes with this idea that beauty can come from within, something we know to be true.

So, this box includes skincare stuff–infused with essential oils that are great to lift the mood AND treat your skin deliciously.

It also includes a booklet about taking 14 days to improve your love toward yourself. Being at home in your skin is an indefinably beautifying thing.

It also includes three sessions with me on the subject, because getting support and targeted help with the process is invaluable. (I can tell myself over and over again that I’m FINE but it’s when a coach asks me, “So what is really happening” that I’m honest with myself.)

The problem with dismissing beauty is that it seems to be planted in our consciousness for a reason. The way we evaluate it is directed by our cultures–the way we respond to it often coded by our own experience.

(For instance, the way I feel hostility and mistrust toward guys with a certain set of features, because I watched a guy I thought was cute sucker-punch the school misfit. I’m sure many of them haven’t done that, but it’s coded in that they’re capable of deceiving me!)

We react to other humans through a complicated mesh of factors, and what our eyes see is incredibly powerful.

The good news is that very often we see “confidence” before we see size number, or “kind eyes” before we see wrinkles.

It also matters that what you see in your body and face is a reflection of what is going on in your health. As I get more and more experienced as a health coach, I start to notice certain tells in faces or body-shapes that correspond to physical issues.

(Was phrenology so off after all? Who can say, very little legit research on that one…)

Your skin shows, in a muted way, where you’re under stress, where your diet is out of balance.

I include beauty (in the sense of skincare and fitness) in my passions, even though externals aren’t something I hold as a virtue. Instead, it’s because it has a very real interaction between emotion and health, the two things I’m the most fierce about.

Love and beauty from within–you can’t get the one without the other, it seems to me.

What can you do to show your body and spirit a little love today?