Author and Hospice Chaplin Kerry Egan works with end of life patients who share their reflections on their lives. As one elderly woman faces death, she realizes how much time she wasted hating her body, abusing it and treating it as an enemy.
After speaking with several people facing their final departure, Egan concluded, “they lived their lives thinking their bodies were something to tolerate at best, something to criticize, to despise, at worst – a problem they could never correct.” Another younger patient realizes she will miss most is how her body “danced and ate and swam and had sex and made babies.” She admits, “and to think I spent all those years criticizing how it looked and never noticing how good it felt – until now when it never feels good.”
The elderly woman confesses, “Everyone told me – my family, my school, my church. When I got older, magazines and salesgirls and boyfriends (told me), even if they didn’t say so out loud. The world’s been telling me for 75 years that my body is bad. First for being female, then for being fat and then for being sick.”
Why does society dictate how we should treat our bodies? Why do we allow other’s thoughts about our appearance outweigh what we think about ourselves? Instead of appreciating the unconditional support our bodies gives us every day, we choose to do things causing it harm and discomfort with often long lasting effects.
But today is a new day. We can choose to celebrate our uniqueness. We can be thankful for our bodies that show up for life and those around us. We can see our bodies as our homes and treat them with the love and care we would want anything cherished to feel. We can recognize that hating our bodies has only left us feeling inadequate, resentful, and unhappy.
I know this may sound scary but sit for a moment and reflect on how your current mindset toward your body makes you feel every minute of every day. Only you can decide if a new way of experiencing your body can end the war with it. It’s time for a cease fire from the constant battle of derogatory comments that only make you feel worse.
So how about trying something new? Change can be fear provoking BUT it can also improve the quality of our lives. Change introduces us to new opportunities for growth and expansion of our circle of knowledge. And if you have been doing something for a long time and it’s not working, or you feel just as bad about yourself as you always have, isn’t it time for another option?
I will never be a 5’10 blonde twenty-something so why spend time and energy hoping that I will wake up one day and be transformed. And who says that my life would be any better or my problems would be less in another body? There are no guarantees in life except for what is happening here and now. So why not embrace my curves, appreciate my curly red hair and honor my vivacious personality? If I don’t, who will?
Acceptance of what exists is the key. Acknowledge the beauty of your terminal uniqueness. NO ONE will every be you. You are a one of a kind, truly special.
Sourced from Chaplain Kerry Egan’s CNN article at http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/16/health/dying-regret-body-hate/index.html