Fat in Asia...

For the New Moon I wrote up some pretty serious intentions. The one intention that required more from me than from the universe was to stop talking so negatively to myself and about myself. I constantly make cracks about my 'fat ass' and other physical attacks along these lines. I often look in the mirror and am devastated by what I see, or get really "knit-picky" over little imperfections. Not to generalize, but I find that most women are their own worst enemy when it comes to this. I haven't prescribed to a fashion magazine in a decade, and I sure as shit don't watch television...so then why do I still compare myself to the women that are featured here? The way that I talk to myself is a way that I would never, ever speak to anyone, especially not a good friend, so why in the hell do I continue to talk to myself this way? And so it was, that I made an intention to shift the way that I talk to my body, and am working on incorporating more self love for my body. My weight fluctuates, but I'm healthy. My curves get a little more round that usual sometimes, but it's not the end of the world. This has been my challenge these past two weeks, but I have been doing really well and I've noticed a positive shift in my overall body since I've changed my inner dialogue.

Clarissa Pinkola Estes writes in her book "Women Who Run With Wolves"....

"The body is a multilingual being. It speaks through its color and its temperature, the flush of recognition, the glow of love, the ash of pain, the heat of arousal, the coldness of non conviction. It speaks through its constant tiny dance, sometimes swaying, sometimes a-jitter, sometimes trembling. It speaks through the leaping of the heart, the falling of the spirit, the pit at the center, and rising hope.

The body remembers, the bones remember, the joints remember, even the little fingers remember. Memory is lodged in pictures and feelings in the cells themselves. Like a sponge filled with water, anywhere the flesh is pressed, wrung, even touched lightly, a memory may flow out in a stream.

To confine the beauty and value of the body to anything less than this magnificence is to force the body to live without its rightful spirit, it's rightful form, it's right to exultation. To be thought ugly or unacceptable because ones beauty is outside the current fashion is deeply wounding to the natural joy that belongs to the wild nature.

To support only one kind of beauty is to be somehow unobservant of nature. There cannot be only one kind of songbird, only one kind of pine tree, only one kind of wolf. There cannot be one kind of baby, one kind of man, or one kind of woman. There cannot be one kind of breast, one kind of waist, one kind of skin.

ARE WE STRONG ENOUGH TO REFUTE THE PARTY LINE AND LISTEN DEEP, LISTEN TRUE TO THE BODY AS A POWERFUL AND HOLY BEING?"

As soon as I began reclaiming my power, I came back to Sri Lanka. Asia is an interesting beast sometimes...especially Sri Lanka. The first thing that my family said to me when I arrived in January was that I was "looking fat", which they said with a smile as they slapped my toosh. Meanwhile I was thinking that I was looking like a hot mama, thanks to the little bit of weight I shed because of my cleanse. Fast forward to today, on the East Coast (arugam bay), one week after a very indulgent trip to India (the food there certainly isn't "light" fare, and I never missed a meal....). I surfed for hours and hours in the morning and then got out around noon to (finally) have some breakfast. I bid my little local friend Nisha farewell, and told him that I was heading for food. He responded by telling me not to eat too much because I was getting "bigger". I felt like my heart was run over by a truck....a thousand times over. I even had a tear or two escape on the walk back home. Nisha loves me, and is one of the sweetest little boys around...it was in no way at all a mean comment, or one meaning disrespect. They just say it like it is here, and it's not taken offensively because being heavier isn't a good thing or bad thing. It just is. But because I'm from the West and our culture is obsessed with being skinny, well, he might as well have told me that I was grotesque. All the hard work on having a positive body image flew out the window. I would be lying to you if I told you that I still wasn't hurt by it, but I'm trying to shift my mindset. In an attempt to fill myself back up, I turned to one of the Radiance Sutras that is really beautiful...

Drop the thought,
"I am this body,"
Abandon the limitation,
"I am only this specific place and time."

Embrace instead,
I am not my body.
I am not this place.
I am not this time.
There is no place.
There is no time.

Realize,
I AM EVERYWHERE,
Sustained by infinite bliss.

Radiance Sutra #81


And now the kundalini mantra,
I am bountiful.
I am beautiful.
I am blissful.

Namaste to all of you beautiful people out there....all different shapes, sizes, colors, and spiritualities.


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