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And so we are done.

But here’s the thing:  you are not done (and neither am I).

That is, once you have accepted it, the great miracle and joy of life.  The thing about life is that the shape of it is always changing.  You are always changing.  We grow up and think we can create this one life where we choose our people and our pleasures and just exhale into it without anything changing but the day of the week.  We think we can force life into the shape that we want if we are just good enough or pretty enough or smart enough.

If there is only one thing that you hold onto as you leave our shared sacred space, it is this: you are already enough. Everything about you is worthy and good and important.  You matter not because of the size of your body, the length of your hair, the color of your skin, or whether or not you have your degree.  You mattered the moment you opened your eyes onto this world and you will matter long after you close your eyes to this world for the last time.

That is the irony of realizing that nothing is permanent.  The lack of permanence is not something to dread but something to celebrate and embrace.  If you ache for change, if you want a world that is different, if you want your world to be different, it is all possible.  All it calls for is for you to bring your sweet heart, strong soul, able body, and sharp mind into union together to yield the action that you have been dreaming of, to give the world what you were most meant to offer it right now.  Do that over and over again, and you have found the purpose of life.

There may have been a time where you doubted the brilliant beauty of the union of all of you in concert together.  There may have been a time when the organic nature of everything caused you panic.  But here is what you now know deep down inside if you will allow yourself to remember it:  the organic nature of life is where all its beauty is.  The organic nature of you is where all your beauty is.  When things are static, they gather dust, they lose attention and meaning, they evaporate from our consciousness.  Vitality is not found in the thing that never changes.  Vitality is found in the thing that is always changing, always growing, always journeying.

And you, beautiful you, already have everything you need within you for that journey.  You have everything the world is asking of you deep down inside.  Maybe you didn’t realize that it was significant enough to give, maybe you didn’t realize that just as it occurs to you that you need a shift, your heart, soul, and body are prepared to offer that to you if you will only get still enough to listen to the wisdom you hold deep down inside.

Be ready for you, dear one, because the world is hungry for what you have to offer. 

On the first day of class, I shared a letter with you and in it, I said that I hoped that on our last day together, you would leave this space with your eyes up, ready to recognize and greet those who approach you not just because you know that other souls should be seen but also because you understand that to hide your soul from us is to deny the world of one of its greatest gifts- you.

You have so much to offer.  I am so humbled by what I have witnessed in you.  And I am buoyed by what I know you have to give.

Show up.  Shift.  Shine on.

You are so bright, and the world needs your lightness.   

♥

At the end of each semester, I write my students a letter that is unique to their class.  This was the letter for my body image class this semester.

Want to read some past letters?

Answer the call into your own greatness 

Radiate Love 

Do the world’s work 

And here is the letter I share with them on the first day of school.  

The end of semester is here which means I am throat deep in reading really brilliant, inspiring papers from my students.  That’s the good news. T he bad news is that I just don’t have the time to write a new post for today so I am sharing some of last semester’s brilliance from my students with a repost of one of last semester’s The Kids Are Alright posts.  And good news: the end of a semester means there is more brilliance to share from my students.  Look for that hear on December 22nd!

At the end of each semester, my body image students write a process paper where they synthesize their learning- both personal and academic- for the semester. These papers are always a delight to read and there is so much wisdom in them that I just have to share a fraction of it (with my students’ permission, of course) with you. Here, some wise words from my students this semester. May they give you hope and inspiration the way they did me.  

♥

    “To stop berating my body and to begin celebrating the vessel that I have been given…” This statement baffled me. Celebrate my body? Why would I celebrate my body when I hate everything about it? I had never even considered all that my body does for me on a regular basis, all of its curve, strength, intricacies, and persistence. I had always viewed my body as a visual aesthetic, and nothing more. Furthermore, it was a visual aesthetic to those around me and not myself. I did not place value on its uses, or its daily victories in doing what a body is supposed to do. I did not thank or reward my body for housing my mind and soul, for keeping me alive and going, for fighting for my health. Even when it was fighting my own mind to be healthy. I did not see that, all I saw was that I am not beautiful to society, and that was what I thought bodies were for. As for now, I do my best to give my body what it needs. I always smile when I am able to lift a heavy object, or carry a child. When I rock my niece to sleep, I am proud that my body can act as a place of peace for her. When I am playing sports and dancing, I always hydrate and speak positively to myself. I am proud that I have a vessel capable of helping me to enjoy myself and do what I love. When I am healthy, I acknowledge my body’s strength. I celebrate the vessel that I have been given.

~Andreana

♥

I’ve learned that my soul is incased in this body so that I can experience life and therefore I need to take good care of it in order to live a long and healthy life. I can’t limit my opinion of myself to what I feel others think of me or worse yet what others say I need to be. This journey of self-acceptance and self-discovery has just started for me but I’m very happy at how much I have grown and all I’ve accomplished. I think the most important thing I leaned was not to love my body but rather love me, my mind and soul, if you can do this then you will automatically look in the mirror and love what you see. I’ve realized that I’m so much more than what I look like, and even though I want to look nice on the exterior, what truly matters in the end is what’s in your heart.

~anonymous

♥

On all natural day… I was most self-conscious about wearing my glasses.  It reminded me of my vulnerability and insecurities from middle school.  Many of my friends do not know that I wear glasses because I almost never wear them in public and sometimes find them an inconvenience.  When I shared this comment in class during discussion someone commented and said they didn’t even realize I had them on. I learned how we focus on our own insecurities and think they are at the forefront when people view us, when in reality it’s probably the last thing on their mind.   Realizing that my peers do not notice the same things I do has changed my body image dramatically.  Instead of worrying about the cellulite on my butt, I realize they probably don’t even notice. I have learned that it doesn’t matter that… I … have bad vision and must wear glasses.  It was just a card that I was dealt in life and something that I cannot change.  I have changed my body image now by being lenient on myself, respecting myself, and accepting my differences rather than perceiving them as faults.  I must continue to remind myself that only I zone in on my insecurities, that others do not notice them, and that it is media telling me I have faults.  I must remind myself that we all have differences and that is what makes us beautiful.  There is not a perfect ideal that has been made or that is capable of being achieved.

~Megan

♥

The thing that personally gave me an epiphany in this course was the idea that I am not my body. While this concept seems so simple that it’s strange to think that this had so much of an impact on me, I believe that its simplicity is why its so beautiful. We constantly see ourselves through the lens of other people. We rarely see ourselves for what we really are, because we are too busy thinking of how other people see us. I admit that when I look in the mirror as I get ready in the morning I do not see legs that will get me where I need to go and hands that will allow me to make a difference in my world, but the way that my thighs look a little too big in these pants and that my outfit needs to be accessorized with a designer watch to be socially acceptable. And this is sad to me. I find that I decorate and style myself to please others, and that I am constantly thinking about what others think of me rather than what I think about myself. So the idea that I am not my body really stuck with me. I love the idea that my body is just my vessel that acts as an intermediary between myself and my environment, and that it’s just my vehicle to accomplish the things that my mind and heart desire to do. And in the same way that this statement allowed me to view myself in a different light, it opened me up to viewing others in a different way as well. I noticed that when I stopped appreciating people for what they looked like, or condemning people for not aligning with my ideals of beauty, I saw everyone differently. Some attractive people suddenly became dull when I realized that the thing that kept me in thrall was not their scintillating personality, and normally plain people became beautiful because I finally could appreciate the way their laugh sounds or the way their eyes light up when they feel as if they are truly being heard. I discovered that while I look at people everyday, it is very rare that I genuinely see them for everything that their character and personalities had to offer.

~Heather

So, here we are.  If you are stateside, we are just days away from kicking off the most wonderful time of the year… the Thanksgiving to New Year’s time span that is filled to overflowing with togetherness, love, goodness, merriment, joy, happiness, and, well, if we are being real here, anxiety.  Because while, in theory, we all love to get together with those we love, there is also this little underbelly of worry that we can’t help but wonder about as we load the car with suitcases, brown-paper packages, and carefully prepared casseroles.  And the voice of that worry likes to ask these questions:

Is my cousin going to ask why I am still single?

Is my mom going to ask me if I’ve lost weight, gained it, thought about losing some, thought about gaining some, or some other weight iteration nightmare?

Is my aunt going to say, “you would be so pretty if…”

Basically, in short, is someone, under the auspices of loving me, going to make me feel utterly unlovable with his or her judgments?  And, more importantly, am I going to let them?  Am I going to walk away from that dinner, stuffed from food that couldn’t satisfy the hole that was opened with those words, and think, “I SHOULD HAVE SAID SOMETHING!”  Am I going to feel betrayed not just by my loved ones but by me?

And, so, in the midst of all of your other preparations for the big day Thursday and all the other big days that are to come in the next five weeks, I want you to add one more thing to your list of preparations.  I want you to add planning to take care of you to that list.

Now, there are many ways that we can take care of ourselves and those are all important.  But, today, we are focusing on the one thing you must be able to do this holiday season to get through it with your soul safely intact if you have people in your life who like to “take care” of you by taking you apart.

You have to teach people how to treat you.  

And you do that by setting boundaries. So, sometime today, while the pumpkin bread is baking or the laundry is drying or you are wrapping presents or writing your grocery list, I want you to turn your attention to taking care of you.  I want you to think about what you might hear from your family members that might result in a wound for you if you aren’t vigilant.

“Isn’t it time to start dying those grays?”

“That baby is five years old; shouldn’t you be rid of the baby fat?”

“Do you dress this way to work?”

And then, first and foremost, I want you to remember that those comments are never about you.  If someone feels the need to comment to you about your looks, your station in life, anything, really, it is not about you.  Those comments are a mirror into that person’s life and the challenges he or she has with the issue being mentioned.  I promise.

But, next, I want you to take it a step further.  The person who has his or her own wound often looks for a way to pass that wound on.  Think about it.  A wound like that is so hard to carry around, it is so soul crushing.  And, sometimes, if we can give it away for a moment, if we can just take the edge off of our own misery for a moment, well that feels a little like relief.  It’s only later, with counseling or deliberate insight and personal growth, that we can realize that it wasn’t relief at all; it was a way to numb ourselves.  We numb in so many ways, don’t we?  With food.  With alcohol.  With substances.  By being snarky and bitchy and mean.  We numb because we think the worst thing possible would be to face ourselves, to be vulnerable, to be real- we think that realness, that admission of imperfection is as bad and painful as it gets.  But I promise you this.  No one who has a healthy relationship with herself has ever looked at another person who stands real in the midst of her vulnerability and said “that looks weak.”  Look carefully.  From where I am sitting, vulnerability, realness, truth?  They all look a lot like courage.  They are all breathtakingly beautiful.  Until we give up the myth that both perfect and imperfect exist, we’ll keep missing the real truth: there is no perfect, there is no imperfect, there is only glimmering, vulnerable, soul-refreshing realness and it’s polar opposite.  And the polar opposite is wounded and wounds others.

And those who wish to wound look for the most vulnerable target- a target they know who will not see their barb for what it is and a target who will quietly accept it- in their desperate desire to pass off their own pain for a moment.  For your empathy and sympathy and politeness (oh, she won’t make a scene!), you are being targeted.

But that doesn’t have to be your role anymore.

Spend some time thinking about what you hear and then come up with two comebacks.

#1  The comeback that would most satisfy you if you could just say whatever you wanted to say which might sound a little like this:

Your mom:  “Honey, don’t you think you would just be so much happier if you just lost 20 pounds?”

You:  “Mom, don’t you mean that you would be so much happier if I just lost 20 pounds?” or “I would actually be happier if you didn’t always think my body was up for grabs.”

#2  The comeback that you can legitimately stomach giving– one that will set a boundary, one that will teach the person how to treat you, but one that will not send you to the bathroom for the duration of the get-together because you are so nauseous over delivering it.

Your mom:  “Honey, don’t you think you would just be so much happier if you lost 20 pounds?”

You:  “I actually don’t think you have to lose weight in order to be happy” or “This isn’t a productive conversation for us to have.”

Sometimes, comeback #1 and comeback #2 are the same but what I have found is that if you are a person who has spent your life receiving these barbs, it is very hard to go from receiving them and not saying a word to really strongly zinging the person the next time he or she says something.  Moreover, a big zinger isn’t the key difference maker.  Just identifying the boundary for the person you are interacting with and letting he or she know it has been crossed and you won’t be quiet anymore usually goes a very long way.  Very rarely does it take more than just a handful of times of setting that boundary before the person leaves you alone and either chooses to deal with his or her own stuff or moves on to, unfortunately, another victim.

Boundary setting is hard, hard work.  But it is important work.  Not just because it teaches other people how to treat us, but because it also shows us that we can take care of ourselves.  And when we begin to understand that, everything changes.  Maybe that can be this year’s holiday miracle.

Take care of you.  Promise?