The body and its sacredness | Post

Growing up, I had a rather peculiar relationship with food.

Most of my life, I had somewhat of a hate relationship to it, which I now realise stemmed from a 'lack of love for self'.

Lack of love for self

I never understood the relationship between the food I consumed, and the shape of my body. I barely consumed much food and was conscious of the food I ate (i.e. barely ate much of it), but my body still seemed to stretch and flex regularly. I never understood this.

Transition to the love of self, and excess food

Upon realising that I hadn't accepted my body and was continuously chasing a different version of it, I finally decided to do the groundwork of learning to love me. I did this because I realised how the lack in this area led me to search for fulfilment in other humans, as well as the general lack of confidence that came with it.

As I grew in love with myself, I also realised for the first time that food was not the enemy, and therefore that I didn't need to deprive myself of the experience of food.

I then relocated to a different country and started to experiment with this new freedom that came with being able to eat anything I wished to eat.

This soon led to its own deficiency - eating too much.

The body is a temple

When I noticed this, I made attempts at changing my eating habits.

I realised that it wasn't that I ate a lot of food - in fact, the counter was truer - but rather that I didn't eat the right kinds of foods. This again came with its own implications to the body. I would have chosen to eat a packet of tortillas over a nutritious meal on any day.

I eventually realised that this way of living was not sustainable either. But I acknowledged that I had tried to change things (e.g. cutting down on snacks), but I had fallen short on these attempts.

I decided to pray about this. I realised that I would fall short each time unless I had a mindset shift.

"The body is the temple of the Lord."

The mindset shift came when I realised that this house that I call to body, was actually a gift to me. And that my responsibility was to keep this gift in a good condition.

This realisation was a game-changer for me.