Letting Go of the Past

I've always been a journaler. I have a stack of notebooks scrawled full of crushes and questions, anxieties, diets, plans, and numbers. Lots of numbers. I've always valued the fact that I kept these journals, imagining what insights and memories I could gain at some other, older point in my life walk. This morning I had reason to dig up that stack of journals to hunt for some of those apparent insights.

But I mostly found numbers.
The numbers related to the scale, or how many bread servings or cookies I had guiltily consumed that day. These numbers were interspersed with self-hatred, self-doubt, anxiety, fear, and all manner of harsh intentions to change into something, someone, who I was not.

I had no desire to reread any of this nonsense. The only wisdom I came away with was stuffing all those notebooks into a garbage bag and saying good-bye to that stunted girl forever.

There are valuable lessons to take away from this huge stranglehold on my life. And here's what they are. We are not our body. Food is good, creative, and a wonderful sensory pleasure to be taken full advantage of. The human body is an excellent vehicle to drive into the ground, with the sole intent of living life with all it has to offer- all that God has for us.

If I seem preoccupied with the topic of women and their bodies right now; its because I am. I am working on organizing a support group dealing with food and body image. My desire is to provide a forum for supporting women in learning to listen to and trust the intrinsic wisdom of their God-given body, and thereby come to a place of peace in their relationship to food and their body.

We have a choice in our culture. We can be in the world and of the world- Accept what Hollywood says about us as true. That we cannot be trusted. That we cannot be of any significance unless our body is sleek and thin. Or we can become the voices for the alternative. That we are all different in our beauty. That we are powerful, and able to make great impact in our circle of influence. The more we choose the voices and attitudes that support our belief in our power, the quieter the voices of pressure for thin or muscley can become.

And this is my choice. I choose to empower others. I choose not to join in the guilty whispers in the buffet line of life. I choose to define myself by a different standard than Shape and Cosmo.

And I hope you'll do the same. I know that I'll have many times of doubting these decisions, and I could use a strong, sensible woman or two to turn to.