Equinox balance

In this week’s enCouraging Bliss column, BlissChick is talking about our bodies as healthy vehicles. In fact there’s been a whole lot of discussion about body image over at BlissChick this week, which has been very interesting.

I just remembered I wrote a post about this a year ago, which you can read here. I was quite surprised when I re-read it because it seems I really have changed in the last year. I can hardly remember feeling what I was feeling when I wrote:

I have a lot of issues with my body. There’s too much of it, so I try occasionally to starve it, or indulge in extreme regimes then give up, and then sometimes I stuff it too full of food to compensate, and to punish it.

I went on to write about my plan to eat what I wanted, when I wanted, take some moderate exercise and pamper myself a bit. Which is what I’ve been doing during the last year. And I’ve lost a little weight and become a little fitter. But far more importantly, it seems I have a completely different relationship with my physical self, which I was unaware of until now.

BlissChick set us a task: to write down in three columns the different parts of our body, our instinctive reactions to them, and then “the beautiful truth” about the parts of our body. When I came to this last part of the exercise, I realised I’d pretty much already written the beautiful truth in the second column.

So I’m feeling thankful that at this time of blossoming, and of equal balance between day and night, I seem to have slipped into a better balance with my body.

Image by jam343

Elsewhere:

In this season of growth, I know I’m not the only person delighted by the Obamas’ decision to plant a kitchen garden at the White House, which you can read about here at Elaine’s place.

And I’m discovering that it is the Baha’i New Year. The more I find out about this faith of peace and unity, the more I hope that Obama’s (yes, him again!) initiative in reaching out to Iran, where Baha’is are terribly persecuted, bears fruit.