Here’s a painting I did 7 years ago. I was at my fitness peak and felt I finally made peace with my body. It turned into a whole series called “I Love My Body”.
This vision took a backseat when I became a mom, and my relationship with my body changed. It got…messy and contradictory. There was “Wow, my body birthed and nurtured a whole new human being, amazing!” Vs. “I don’t like how I look, I don’t own my body anymore.” I lost interest in taking care of my body, eating well, sleeping well, even dressing well–because, hey, the baby came first.
In 2022 I launched the series as NFTs, and relaunched them again in 2023, I guess as an attempt to again make peace with my body. There were small wins thanks to IF and Zumba classes, but they were fragile and short-lived. The unpredictability of a nomadic lifestyle also made sticking to a routine extra challenging.️
Loving my body is a fragile vision that is still very blurry for me at this point, and maybe the way forward is not to revive the old, foggy lenses. Maybe I need something more drastic, like vision surgery. Or as my therapist says, start with a lot of self-love and self-compassion.
On Red Day, here’s a full stop to check how far do you actually see? Does your vision go beyond what’s already visible? Can you see what’s not there yet? And can you keep seeing it into the future? What helps you see?