It’s a colossal endeavor to rewire our relationships with our bodies beyond the toxic societal influences and painful life experiences, but the only way we will ever get there is to envision where we want to go.
To facilitate this reimagining, Wise Women (WW) in our women’s groups were asked to find a song that inspired a new path of relating to their bodies. Together, we listened and moved our bodies to empowering music from our Love & Honor Your Body - @A.Space.For.Wise.Women Spotify Playlist. Music is an essential expressive arts therapy tool because it accesses parts of our brains and bodies that our thoughts alone can’t enter and allows us to create new neural pathways (Alexander 2015).
Once the rhythm and lyrics allowed our minds to regulate, strengthen, and shift to new possibilities, WW were invited to spend five minutes creating a spiral journal writing with the prompt, “What do you want your relationship with your body to be?” Unsurprisingly, the wisdom shared was both relatable and profound.
Afterwards, I combined a variety of ideas from all of our spiral writings to create this expressive writing piece and read it to the women’s groups. Witnessing our collective wants allowed for our stories to be told and provided another layer of emotional and body awareness. This awareness facilitates the strenuous work of challenging our original programming to move to a new, wiser, more empowered relationship with our bodies.
EXAI (Expressive Arts Invitation):
If you are ready for this work, try this expressive art experiential.
Step 1: Find a song (or use one in our playlist) that represents your new path of relating to your body. (If you don’t know where to begin, I’m really loving Amy Steinberg’s “Beautiful in Me.”
Step 2: Draw a spiral on a piece of paper and use those lines to journal for 5 minutes using the following prompt: “What do you want your relationship with your body to be?”
Step 3: Read your expressive writing to a trusted WW to allow your story to be witnessed. You will both benefit from sharing your wisdom. Alternatively, you are invited to bravely share yours in our A Space for Wise Women Community Space.
Step 4: Rewiring your relationship isn’t magic; it’s practice. Some WW plan to read this piece first thing in the morning and others plan to take a line from it to be their mantra for the day. Find a practice that works for you.
My Darling Body
I want to care for my body as if it was a small child. I want to nourish and nurture her. I want to soothe her when she’s scared or overwhelmed and protect her so she feels safe. I want to accept and see the beauty in her no matter what her size, shape, age, ability, or what she does or does not achieve. I want to stand up for her. I want to shift my expectations and plans when she's sick or injured and feel grateful for spaces that feel healthy and pain free. I want to hold space to grieve when my body betrays me and forgive her when she’s just being human. I want to connect to my body. I want to stop ignoring her and pushing through at all costs. I want to ask her what she needs and listen to what she has to say. I want to feed her when she’s hungry, sleep when she’s tired, and rest when she’s done working. I want to never deprive her of joyful food and experiences that enliven and bring connection. I want my body to receive and give sensual pleasure without guilt or shame and surround her with compassionate, loving people that believe the best in her. I want to stop controlling, demanding, dictating, whipping, criticizing, and picking out all of her flaws. I want to apologize to my body. I want her to know she’s worthy of setting loving limits with the food, substances, and the media she consumes and help her to realize when numbing keeps her from the clear mind and energy she deserves to realize her passions and purpose. I want to move my body, not to meet some unrealistic beauty standard, but because it makes her feel strong and capable and sane. I want to feel unburdened by the pressures of culture–to be free from comparison, competition, shame, and never feeling good enough. I want her to know that her body is for her and her alone. I want my body to unapologetically take up space in this world and move through life with her head held high. I want to stop fearing for my body’s health and safety and enjoy the present moment. I want to teach her to push past her comfort zone to do things she never thought possible. I want to wake every morning and tell her how beautiful she is. I want to delight in my body's capabilities. I want to relish in her sweetness. I want her to laugh, hug, kiss, taste, play, create, dance by the fire, and go on wild adventures. I want her to feel every sensation this world has to offer…I want to love you and love you and love you and love you.
Citation:
Alexander W. Legge, On the Neural Mechanisms of Music Therapy in Mental Health Care: Literature Review and Clinical Implications, Music Therapy Perspectives, Volume 33, Issue 2, 2015, Pages 128–141, https://doi.org/10.1093/mtp/miv025