Hi Friend,
We are off to a great start with our new Origin Stories cohort - it doubled in size in the 36 hours before the course began, which is pretty cool! (And we still have about 1, maybe 2, more spots if you've been meaning to sign up! It's really ok to do so right now!)
In the midst of the first session, several people mentioned how much they are moved by the way that I tell stories as a person who is open about having a neurological divergence.
Huh, I thought to myself. That's interesting.
I looked around the "room" - I knew enough of the participants well enough to know multiple folx either themselves had or were actively in relationships with (parents of, partners of, children of, etc.) someone with a diagnosed (or strongly suspected) neurological divergence. And/or some kind of "dis-ability." And/or someone whose family/culture/society that they come from sees their abilities, abilities that you or I might see as just such a huge gift, such as deeply communing with forests and animals and rocks and music and, as "different," in a "weird" kind of way.
I'm really glad that my sharing about my experience as someone with some neurological spiceyness has been helpful and encouraging. I'll keep doing it.
And perhaps because it is the beginning of summer, and I've spent a fair amount of time this past month helping my mom in California, which included swimming in our community pool, I find myself thinking about another "difference" that influences (literally) how I move in the world just as much as my brain: my body. Specifically, having a body that has been medically diagnosed as overweight for most of my life.
It's pretty common that people with neurological divergences also have some kind of body-eating "issue" (both underweight and overweight). And there's a whole strand of fat activists and disability justice thinkers who have looked at some of the overlaps between disabilities and overweight-ness in a society that deeply and consistently favors people who are thin. How many speaking gigs have I not been asked to do because of my size, I sometimes wonder.
As an eco-theologian, I deeply believe that bodies, including my body, is sacred. Some of my earliest childhood memories are around the connections between my physical body and the world around me - my breath as part of the wind; my body as part of the earth; my blood as part of the flow of all the waters of Earth; my moon cycles as part of what makes me an earthling.
This doesn't mean that I've always loved my body. Growing up in an overweight family, I internalized many messages about how being overweight is "bad" (medically, socially, practically, etc.).
Of course, I've had a huge journey around this, from restrictive diets to lots of exercise to Overeaters Anonymous (twice…I lost about 100 pounds each time... and gained it back....) to working with nutritionists to delving into the anti-diet world. I've learned from all of those spaces - about bodies, about food and nutrition, about the deep fat-phobia of our culture and where it comes from and its link to colonization. Including how historically abnormal it is that "skinny" is associated with "healthy"…
About the importance of self-love, no matter what.
At some point after I started Sequoia Samanvaya, when I was making new friends in this new role as a witchy minister, maybe about 8 years ago now, and I was doing a lot of work on self-compassion, I bought my first bikini. A red one.
It was one of those quiet-major life moments that maybe no one but me knew was a life moment: wearing the bikini to a beachside gathering with a bunch of cool people whom I barely knew. There were moments when I felt as insecure as I did at 16, holding hands with my girlfriend in San Francisco's Castro. Would someone say something weird? Would I lose my new cool friends if my belly showed? If they saw how flabby my arms were?
Turns out my new friends were way too cool to say anything about my arms. I had a great time. I ran into the waves, lay under the sun, and felt, well, a bit like everyone else. Just one more body on the beach.
I've enjoyed wearing that bikini ever since. Lake parties and swim pool birthdays, with people who have "disabled" bodies and "picture perfect" bodies; with the memories of people who used to have bodies and are now sans-body (aka dead). The dead remind me how precious it is to have a body at all!
Which doesn't mean there aren't moments of 'omg what do they think of me'. It happened just last week, at the pool where I was the heaviest kid on the swim team. And then I reminded myself that I had every right to enjoy the water as any other person there. I took a deep breath, dove into the water with a strong streamline, and swam.... and it didn't take long before I was loving how long my reach was, how I could feel my stomach muscles getting tighter, until the worries of that day were gradually replaced by the sheer joy of being in the water.
The self-love possible through eco spiritual practices has helped me to lean into the power of my hips, into my own eco-erotic nature, and to enjoy developing my own style, my own sense of fashion, my own jewelry, my own cool wardrobe.... and all sorts of ways to enjoy my body just as it is, right now. All the pomp and circumstance that the birds have - I get that, and I can my human version of that too.
That includes swimming, hiking, horseback riding, and kayaking, and going out on romantic dates in outfits that I think are cute; it includes wearing clothes my family would say a 'fat girl' should *never* wear. It's about how, a few years ago, I gave myself permission to get a capstone wardrobe that includes silk as well as the more practical cotton, to experiment with makeup alongside practical sneakers (though I've gotta say Krissy's shoe game is way better than mine). Self-expression and beauty are part of our earthiness…. and I can and do all of those things in the body I have right now, not just the body that maybe someday I might have.
( Side note: for all you fashionistas, I def recommend The Devil Wears Prada 2 - the social commentary on AI, journalism, intergenerational tension, and female leadership was just as amazing as the clothes and cinematic shots. )
This summer, even if you love your body just as it is right now (I really hope you do!), you might still feel the impact of all the advertisers and influencers and other forms of social pressure telling you your body should be something it's not.
Those messages have been there for a while. The rise of the political right's focus on body sculpting for both men and women is making some of these body-image issues even more extreme, and even more weird, and even more attached to wealth/class/social signaling than before (and let's not kid ourselves - it always has been!) It's also ridiculously ironic that the same people who are telling trans folks not to get body-altering surgeries to change gender-related body parts are, themselves, spending so much money getting... body-altering surgeries that enhance certain aspects of their gender.... often which as far far more disastrous physical and ecological consequences than does other forms of gender-affirming surgery.....
So, in the midst of a season that brings with it body shame as well as body glorification (obviously, those two are related), let me remind you of something.
It is really important to eat when you are hungry.
It is really important to drink enough water. (And staying hydrated sometimes means hydrating drinks, in addition to water)
It is really important to get enough rest and sleep (which is a whole-day thing, not just sleeping all the way through the night!)
It is really important to partake in connection with beings outside of yourself - maybe that's physical connection, hugs, massages, animals, going to circle, just being in the presence of someone who understands, being held by nature (lakes, rivers, fires, desert-stillness, etc).
And these things, these really simple things, can be really, really hard to do.
For a lot of people, for a lot of reasons - historical trauma, family stuff, American culture, body signals getting confused, etc. - this "simple" stuff is not easy.
From years of working with (and not just against) both my body and my brain, let me reMind you:
It's ok to dare to love yourself just as you are right here, right now. Brain and body. Earth and music and your place in it. Socialness and solo-ness.
It's ok to talk about it. The not-knowing. The confusion. The pain and shame, if that's what you and/or your loved ones are experiencing. The anger at colonial tenancies to pathologize everything... The myriad forms of disconnect. The fact that sometimes signals for "tired" and "hunger" and "thirsty" and "I realy want a hug" can get really confusing.
It's ok to love yourself as you are today, and to take each choice, each meal, each drink, each social media scroll, one day, one moment, at a time.
It's ok to glory in all of it - the mess and the imperfections (who the dickens gets to define 'perfect' anyways?) and the hard work and the exhaustion and the 'wtf' and just - the is-ness of existence.
And to enjoy that exquisite moment of jumping into a cold lake on a hot day, no matter what you are wearing, if that's your thing.
Blessings of this season to you and your brain-body and all the embodied minds and mindful bodies around you....
Sara Jolena
