A New Practice

I've added a new practice to my Holy Yoga practice.

It's the practice of acceptance.

Due to the twisting, folding, lifting, and compressing nature of yoga I am almost ALWAYS looking straight at the things about my body that i despise.

It's actually pretty horrible.

Especially when it's a particularly "sick" day for me.

So, I've started pushing against the flow of my own nature.

Instead of rejecting these offensive body parts and making a plan of how to obliterate them, I'm speaking acceptance to them.

For example: when I look at my stomach I tell myself, "This belly has housed children. It has been a space of nourishment and life. And my kids were built strong and holy inside of this belly. It is sacred - used by God himself to create new life."

And I love my children. How could I NOT love what carried them, what protected them?

Let me be even MORE honest...

It's not really working yet.

It DOES keep my self hatred at bay. But do I feel joy when I look straight at the parts of my body that haunt and shame me? Not yet.

Will I?

I hope so. It is my true and full desire to be at peace within myself.

I offer those distorted self images to Jesus every single day.

I battle them more often than not.

I rejoice in "skinny" days and would be lost without my push up bra.

But this IS my body. This is how God has formed me.

I am healthy. I am strong. I am intentional about how I live.

And my daily offering must always be ME.

So, in Holy Yoga and in life, I am practicing acceptance.

Maybe if I can learn to accept myself as the CREATION, then I can learn to accept the CREATOR. Can I trust that he didn't make a mistake? He didn't slip up when piecing me together.

Although Paul meant something completely different, I am living his words today....

By the grace of God, I am what I am. He grace did not pass by me.