Decolonizing our bodies

Yesterday I listened to this really awesome podcast, Decolonize the Body, from a show called How to Survive the End of the World. 

There has been lots of talk these days about decolonizing. And I love it. It feels amazing to feel validated. All these emotions of pain and sadness from when I was a child and being called too hairy, too curvy, too dark. It feels validating to finally hear - thats bullshit. These are just the words from an oppressive culture. These are the words from major corporations trying to sell you whatever is their latest trend. These are the words that have been handed down for centuries causing women to disfigure and harm there bodies. To be whiter, thinner, blonder.

In the podcast, they posed the question - when was the first time someone expressed disgust at my body.

I thought to myself and remembered when I was third grade - sitting at my desk - minding my own business - doing my work - doing my best to blend in and stay quiet - the boy next to me GASPED at the sight of the hair on my arms. He then called me a hairy Mexican. 

I felt so ashamed and embarrassed. I didn't want to tell anybody else. I didn't want to tell my mom because I was afraid of passing on that shame to her. I kept it to myself.

This one stupid little comment I let cause me so much shame which led me to shaving my arms, bleaching my arm hairs and even wearing long sleeves through the summer - which is long and hot in Georgia. I say I let - but the truth is I was a child - and this is what happens when a child lives in a world where everyone around them doesn't look like them. Where all the people in ads don't look like them. All the dolls they have don't look like them. This was the first comment that really made it loud and apparent to me that I didn't look like everyone else and gradually grew.

Fortunately, as I've grown older and become a mother, I've reclaimed my body. This is also thanks in part to a lover who loves my body for the way that it is and admires and appreciates all the magic that it is capable of. And to finally opening my ears to the words from the women around me and for giving me the space to be my beautiful self. 

"The thing we want to punish most is the thing that looks like abundance"

Pregnancy to me has always been a magical experience - a time when I experience my full potential as a human. Not to say that through pregnancy is the only way - but for me - that was my awakening. My realization that I am so much more and that the time spent worrying about all our petty little things was time wasted. Energy wasted. 

So where am I going with all this?

Maybe you'll read these words and they can serve as a reminder to stop stressing and comparing your body. To stop worrying. To instead give yourself that extra love. And know that you are beautiful the way you. were created. That you are magic and capable of so much more. To be content and savor the goodness of yourself.