health & well-being

Many of us don’t like the changes that occur in our body when life changes something.

Consider the woman who loses a breast through mastectomy – not a body change she was counting on, yet for many this opens the doors to new avenues of people, social events, and health and nutrition choices they may not have been exposed to otherwise. The changes that occur in pregnancy – yes inevitable, but how comfortable is that for women when their body changes shape, form and weight to encompass a growing individual? Some women welcome that change, but would squirm at a 2kg weight gain due to holiday pleasure and indulgence. I think of one of my daughters who sustained a spinal injury at age 4 and is now 27, who has gone through many body changes and transitions as growing young women do, but with the added challenge of being in her chair and knowing full well what it is like to still go into the child’s section of a store to find trousers that fit her thin legs or little feet. Yet equally she “sports” a fabulous pair of biceps and triceps!  She is gorgeous. I have noticed, following viewing some recent holiday pics, that I am also “wearing” more wrinklesor what I like to call “wisdom lines”!  My joints are showing twinges of “aching and are also showing me that my body is changing. This is reigniting my desire for yoga and walking. How is it for women going through menopause to feel the fire of flushes and the ups and downs of those changes?  The end of child-bearing years however also can be a welcoming rite of passage into the wisdom of maturity and new opportunities that may open up because they may finally make time for themselves over and above family and/or spouse.  I was also inspired recently by the news of a woman I know who has a very high level spinal injury and who completed a 1000km trek in a hand-cycle culminating in reaching base camp of Mt. Everest.  The motivation for her to have “conquered” such a feat has sprung no doubt, only through her original accident and “body change” that has been given the opportunity to morph into an “extraordinary ability.” and this feat is something which she may not have aspired to if she had been living life in her body pre-accident.

When we begin to stop our judgement, angst, frustration, anger….or whatever … when life changes our perception and love for our body, and when we begin to see this simply as a transition allowing us to choose LOVE for ourselves and our body more fully……then we can actually be in a place of peace and calm. When we see change as an opening door of possibility, rather than a prison door closing us in, then we can also feel more comfortable in our skin as we transition.  Change doesn’t have to restrict us. Change, by the essence of the word itself, can mean growth, freedom and new opportunities.