Hey Body...

I feel like I should start by asking you how you're doing, but I already know how you're doing. Maybe that's why it's easy not to talk to you...because you are so very good at expressing how, exactly, you are. We spend so much time trying to figure out how people really are...if our loved ones really are happy, wondering what friends truly think about us, but you are perfectly straightforward. You have never lied to me. You are completely honest, completely present, completely honourable, but rather than giving you all of the respect you deserve, I pretend that I can't hear what you're saying to me and I close my eyes to what you're showing me.

You have mourned with me...when I was sad, I stuffed food in you to make you sad too. You cried out- you stretched and expanded and suffered along with my spirit, but you have stuck with me throughout this abusive relationship. You couldn't get away from me and the damage I was causing you. You've been so patient, but I undestand that you're tired and that you need more from me. You have given so much, and now it's time for me to give back to you.

I am finally ready to listen to what you are telling me. I hear that you need to breathe and move and receive nourishment. I know how grateful you are to be stretched long and flushed with energy and built up. You are so quick to say thank you, after a good meal or a long walk, that it's time I take a lesson from your perseverance and simple gratitude. From your determination to stick with me. From your integrity.

Dear body- how is it that I am closer to you than any other being on this planet, but I give more to everyone else than to you? I think I can't live without others, but in truth it is only you I can't live without, so it's time to put more into our relationship. I am finished being the absentee partner, leaving you to suffer the blows I throw at you. You deserve honour. You deserve so much more than I have given, and the only way to make that up to you is to tune in.

I hear you. I see you, beautiful and beautifully ever-present body. You haven't given up on me, and I will not give up on you.

I love you, body. Let me show you how much.