I suggest you sit back and let me read to you: 

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Here’s what I believe:

it’s time for our bodies to belong to us.

It is time.

We have spent generations letting someone else have their way with our bodies.  From “lie there and think of the Empire” to slavery to corsetry to virginity to working too hard for too long for too little, and even to substituting money for the things that we naturally value most: health, interconnection, joy, and pleasure, we have subordinated our bodies to someone else’s agenda for

way

too

long.

WAY too long.

And it’s time to change.

This is about groundedness and power.

This is about strength.

This is about sovereignty of the most

profoundly

basic

kind.

This is about you and YOUR body.

Your right to your body.

Your right to your health.

Your right to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness–all things, by the way, that are grounded in your body, not in your mind.

This is about the expression of the spirit that comes through the flesh and I tell you,

It is time.

It is time.

So where do we begin?

This is not a story that begins in one place with one thread and follows neatly through until you reach one conclusion.

No.  this is about bodies.  and bodies are complicated and lush and wonderful and much more interesting than that.

So we could begin here: with food.

we could begin here: with clothing.

we could begin here: with touch.

we could begin here: with sex.

But the questions are the same:

*do you like it?

*do you want it?

*and most important: who is in charge?

Because you DESERVE to be in charge of your own body.  You deserve to make your own damn decisions about your own damn skin.  This is yours.  It was yours the day you were born and it will be yours until you relinquish it to the earth and sky and air and water from which you came.  It is a tool, but it is also you, there is no separation between you and this stuff of you, this skin and bone and flesh and blood and no one should be making decisions that are not in your best interest.

No one.

Not even your mother’s ghost, may she rest in peace, or your best friend, or your third grade teacher–

and certainly CERTAINLY not a clothing designer who has never met you or an advertising firm that only cares about the bottom line or a community leader who lived and led five thousand years ago.

Certainly, absolutely not.

You.

this is about you.

this is about getting you back in the driver’s seat.

because that is where you belong.

And here’s the secret:

when you are driving, and you are REALLY driving:

you will not drive yourself into a lake.  You will not ignore that grinding noise.  You will not close the windows and turn off the air conditioning when it’s hot and sunny.  You won’t.

Unless you have a reason.

This is about knowing when the reasons are real,

And when they are inventions of a world that wants to be in control.

Because usually?

It’s a load of hooey.  It’s bullshit.

So I’m calling bullshit.

This is about the power that comes

from knowing who you are

and what you want

and taking care of yourself

so you can be the shining essence of YOU

so you can bring YOUR gifts

so you can share YOUR brilliance

because that thing about oxygen masks

and putting yours on first?

It is true.

And in the rush to be overworked and overbusy and

Frighteningly overwhelmingly important,

We forget:

That we do our best work from a place of clarity

And strength

And power.

That we are the best partner,

The best parent,

The best friend,

The best gift to the world

When we are first a gift

To ourselves.

And we reach deep in the earth

And we connect

And we reach up to the sky

And we connect.

And between heaven and the soil beneath our feet

We shine with the light of a thousand suns.

When we are depressed

We stop wanting to do

The things that make us feel fabulous.

We lose touch with pleasure

And it becomes a cycle

That keeps us from joy.

But joy can also become a cycle

And breaking the loop

Is transformational.

Breaking the loop the first time

Is revolutionary.

And this is about revolution.

Because pleasure—

Knowing it, finding it, embracing it, honoring it—

Is revolutionary.

Creativity and sex

Kick off the same hormonal cascade

Which is why excitement

And eroticism

Feel pretty much the same.

(It’s true: check in with yourself

The next time you do something awesome.

It feels like the end of a perfect first date.)

It boils down to this:

Your power to change the world

By being absolutely yourself

Has a wormhole,

A secret passage,

A hidden door.

And that hidden door

Is pleasure.

And THAT is why

Your pleasure matters.

It is time.

***

Your body belongs to you.

My body belongs to me.

This is how the world becomes a better place.  By putting us back in charge.

One quick example:

How many people do you know who feel bad that they own more than one size of clothing?

Bodies change.  It’s how they are.  Cells die and are reborn, things grow, other things shrink, we adapt to whatever the external reality is.  Hormones, stress, food, weather, economics–all impact our bodies.

Why do we think we should be the same shape all the time?

Because our clothes say so.  Most of our clothes are cut and stitched so that they only fit properly if we’re a certain shape.  We spend hours of our lives and thousands of dollars trying to find the perfect thing to fit our shape.  We areinvested in that shape the minute we start shopping for it.  And then, you know, things happen. We change.  And now we have to release whatever investment we built around the shape we were, and make a new investment in a new shape.  All the time.  Confusing!  Frustrating! Disorienting!

Well, yes.

Imagine if the clothes weren’t in charge.

Imagine if we were in charge.

Imagine a Star Trek-like world where we could simply ask the computer to make us a different set of clothes–ones that fit TODAY.  And then the old ones would be recycled at the molecular level.

We actually do have a choice.  Some people wear draped clothing.  Some people wear very loose clothing. Some people have used laces and buckles to adjust the clothing to fit their bodies.

Ironically, even corsets are laced into shape, because they have to fit perfectly, or they don’t work.

Imagine if your pants adjusted to you.  All the time.  Imagine.

Who would you be if your clothes always fit and looked fabulous no matter what you ate for dessert?

If the tape measure weren’t your gauge, how would you know if you were healthy?

***

When we know we are in charge, we pay more attention.  We listen more closely.  We ask more questions.  We look at the long-term.  We take more responsibility because we are in the position of adults, not being infantalized by an overbearing matrix of advertising and social pressures.

And when we are sovereign in our own bodies, when we know our bodies belong to us, the world changes one cell at a time.

We become firmer about important boundaries and more fluid about other things.  We communicate better.  We learn more.  We have more grace and more peace and less stress.

The world is a different place.

You deserve to live in a body that belongs to you.

And it is time.

It IS time.

 

listen here: bodies manifesto

***

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