Art by Visithra Manikam
From my new book ‘LIFE’:
WHEN YOU CANNOT BEAR YOUR BODY
The days when you cannot bear to exist within your own body, are the days you must really sit there and feel the vessel you live in.
Consider its structure, the layers, the insides.
The many miraculous functions it carries out in every moment.
If it lives with disability, consider the pressure that brings to each and every sinew.
If it is fighting illness, imagine that war within you.
Stare at your body, absorb it. Touch it.
Let the feelings of shame and disgust engulf you, and then send them away to the universe to dispose of.
You are not your body.
You are a guest in your body and you are currently rejecting it daily, hourly.
This rejection creates disfunction and estrangement.
It is little wonder you feel uncomfortable within your own skin.
You are.
You, my friend, did not ruin your body, or let yourself go.
You are merely living, and life takes its toll, as it absolutely must.
The days when you cannot bear to exist within your body, are the days when your body needs you, so very much, to check in.
To accept.
To apologise.
To connect.
To befriend.
Be grateful, as every guest should be.
Be tidy, be respectful, be clean.
But most of all, be good company.
You are not here for long.
Donna Ashworth
From ‘LIFE’: https://amzn.eu/d/9Y6E6kz
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