09/11/2023
I find myself looking at the bellies of other women.
Maybe hers looks like mine but that dress fits her well.
Maybe she doesn’t like hers either.
When she sits down, does it look like mine does?
How did she have a baby and her belly looks just like it did before?
Why does mine look so different?
I wasn’t always kind to my body before, but now there are some days where I don’t even realize how harsh the things I’m saying to myself are.
Would I ever say such a thing to someone else?
I find myself comparing my body to the woman next to me as if different were in some way better or worse.
I find myself jumping into and squeezing a zipper up on my jeans, turning left and right in the mirror as if to see if they pass the test. Do they look okay? Will someone have an opinion on what I look like in these pants?
As if someone’s opinion of the way I look should carry even an ounce of weight on the way I feel.
The conditioning runs deep.
The ads, the movies, the media, conversation, history, and every little bit in between forces us to focus on the way we look. As if that’s the only thing we have to offer this world.
Which is why in the moments of quiet. In my home. With my family. When I find that I am seen for so much more. I am seen for my soul, for my heart, for my laughter, for my love…
For when you tune into that energy, you find that you are actually a greater being in just some version of a body.
A body that carries you. So that you CAN show up and do what the heck you were put here to do in the first place.
Don’t let the way your belly rests when you sit down in your jeans stop you from a power such as that.
