Dear body, I hate you

At a recent conference I was invited to participate in an activity where we were asked to "write a letter to our bodies." We were to sit down and share everything we felt with our bodies and then, in time, our bodies would write back. For a split second, the activity sounded incredibly silly. The more I thought about it, the more it actually sounded liberating!

Each time the activity was discussed my heart would start to pound. Boy, did I have some things I wanted to tell my body. I was so anxious to hurry and write everything down! I didn't want to forget anything! I had big plans to go home and just rip myself a new one. So when I did finally take time to sit down and write... that is exactly what I did.


The Letter started out-

Dear body, I hate you.

I proceeded to nit-pick at every single thing from head to toe that I absolutely despised about my body. (Trust me... I didn't leave anything out)

I went on to tell my body how it had betrayed me. I told my body it had lost my trust, that it wasn't working right, and that I was mad it never had any energy to do anything. I was mean. I was nasty. I said things to my body I would never say to another person and I wasn't even sad about it.

And then, the moment I dreaded came.... My body "wrote back." I was full on expecting a nasty letter back. It had every right to tell me off. I figured it would start out by saying-

Dear Danelle,

We only look the way we do because YOU choose to fill us up with Oreos and chocolate. You never exercise and you send us negative thoughts all day long. (etc. etc.)

But it didn't. Instead, my body had compassion.

Dear Danelle,

We are trying our best.

Thank you for the times you have been good to us. Thank you for taking us outside and for being active. We are so sorry to hear you feel this way about us. We are not so fond of you either right now. Let’s work together on that.

You see, we want a baby as well. We would love to give you that gift. Your Heavenly Father has a plan for you and asks that you be patient. Your emotions are exhausting us. We need you to be a little kinder to us. We are the only body you have. We are willing to make this work. We’d like to start by exercising more with you. We really enjoy that. We love that you drink so much water. We are sorry for the pain we've caused you. That is part of a lesson you have been asked to learn. It may not go away. We want to serve you. Your happiness means everything to us. We hope with time, you can one day be more fond of us.

Love, your body

As I processed this experience tears filled my eyes. How could I be so mean to a body that has always aloud me to do such wonderful things?! A healthy body that allows me to move so freely?

It was then that I realized, maybe this "journey" I've been writing about isn't one of overcoming trial but one of discovering self worth and acceptance! Who knew that would be the hardest part of this whole thing?

And so, I leave you with this... I plan to embark on a NEW journey. One of self love. I am striving everyday to educate myself on what that will entail. I plan to struggle minute by minute to retrain the thinking patterns that have been set throughout my life. I am equally excited as I am terrified to continue sharing the journey with you! And you know something? I think I'm gonna like me...

Remember, I love hearing from you so please feel free to comment and connect!