My Body is Stretching and I Trust It

Medicine Writing Day 20/100

Motherhood requires us to stretch ourselves.

Stretch how much we can hold on all levels.

Stretches us to hold more mentally, emotionally, spiritually.

It also stretches us, quite literally, on the physical level.

Pregnancy stretches our bellies. It stretches how much we’re holding while we walk around in our bodies.

I find myself wanting to talk about how much my body has changed and stretched and expanded physically during and after two pregnancies, but I find people get really uncomfortable when I bring it up.

They assume I’m wanting to change something about my body or that I’m feeling ashamed or frustrated or wanting something to be different.

But this discomfort with the subject of body are projections of the person’s own insecurities about their own body and really has nothing to do with me and my body.

Some people (and quite honestly I don’t interact with too many people like this) just want to berate and talk about how much they wish their body would change or how disappointed they are in themselves for not having a “better” body. For these people, hating themselves is a point of connection with other people who hate themselves.

Some people are happy to talk about diets, exercise regimes and calories all day long. For these people, the idea of accepting their body would be like accepting failure.

Some people completely ignore their physical form. They are completely and utterly identified with it, as ‘who they are’ but are completely disembodied. Embodiment actually requires an ability feel into the physical form, but not be identified with it as who you are.

But to simply share and talk about the experience of a body stretching and changing from a neutral and curious standpoint, in an embodied way, is not something most people seem capable of.

Most people are so disconnected from their body and it’s needs and desires that discussion of it from a neutral but loving place is impossible.

Part of my medicine in the world is to be able to discuss vulnerable, uncomfortable and charged topics in a way that is sober and serves the frequency of authenticity. The body is one of these topics I’m currently spending a lot of time sitting with.

The expansion of the physical form during pregnancy is generally accepted. It’s still very common to hear pregnant women say the “feel fat” (‘fat’ is not a feeling, by the way), but for the most part pregnancy is seen as beautiful.

Once pregnancy is over, there is this rush to return to pre-baby bodies.

But, we’ve been stretched in all the ways. How could we possibly go back to anything pre-baby? We are fundamentally changed by motherhood.

Our bodies should, do and will change.

Through the last three years of my life; two pregnancies and two births and countless hours of breastfeeding, my body has changed and stretched.

It’s bigger and flabbier and quite honestly hurts in ways that make me worry I’ll never be able to move as freely as I did pre-baby.

My body is considered obese in the BMI index. I don’t fit into ‘normal’ sized clothes. I get uncomfortable and feel squeezed in certain types of chairs.

My baby carrier barely fits around my hips.

I am moving outside of the realm of ‘thin privilege.’ Thin privilege being defined for me as just having a body that can shop at most stores and fit into most chairs, seats, and spaces.

My thighs are chafing at a whole new level. My feet ache from the extra weight I am carrying around. I feel the fat rolls on my back folding in on each other when I walk.

And, I refuse to do anything that punishes or is done with the energy of trying to change my body.

I eat what my body craves, no questions asked.

I move my body in ways that feel juicy, nourishing and pleasurable.

No violence. No overriding my body’s subtle signals.

The reverence and honor I have for this form, my Soul’s home, and its messaging is not dependent upon the way it looks.

I trust my body and its signals more deeply than I trust anything else.

I trust this process I am in.

I believe my body is the bridge between God and the world I live in.

To trust the subtleties of the body is to trust the interface of the Soul in this dimension.

Believe me, I understand it’s a radical position to take in this world that places so much value and privilege on those with a certain type appearance.

My form is in a recalibration process and the very last thing it needs from me right now is for me to abandon its urges, desires, and cravings.