One afternoon in early March, I found myself sitting on the couch in my mother's room, working quietly while she dozed. She was on hospice care in the final stages of her cancer journey, and I had put my work almost completely on hold so I could help care for her. Retreats and programs were postponed, portrait shoots pushed back, the calendar cleared. I had simplified things down to a single program: The Body Love Bootcamp. The rest of my time would be spent with Mom.
She had been on hospice for a couple of months, but things were intensifying, and we knew we didn't have much time left together. I spent nearly every day at my sister's house, where we cared for her together. Whenever she was awake, we wanted to focus on her; I saved my work for her downtime, quietly opening my laptop only when she was sleeping peacefully.
There is an intensity to this kind of life experience that makes a person acutely aware of what really matters in life. It separates the wheat from the chaff, as they say. When even the things you love have to come to a halt because something else is even bigger, then that means there's zero energy or room for things that don't matter. I often found myself feeling drained at the very thought of doing anything that wasn't absolutely essential, meaningful, and full of love.
So on this one afternoon as I dove into the conversation in the Body Love Bootcamp Facebook group, I did so with a palpable gratitude for the meaningfulness of this work, and the caring community it was generating in the group. (I don't think I could have done any other kind of "job" during this period.) As I read the powerful comments from all the women sharing stories and insights with one another, I felt the full impact of this work coursing through my body. It is truly humbling to facilitate the kind of gathering that was happening in this group. But what completely took my breath away was a particular post by a woman in the class, who said:
"I am f*cking amazing just as I am, just as I always was. My body made 4 ridiculously charismatic and exceptional human beings. My body has carried me through 40 years. My body, that I have been criticizing and bullying, should be cherished."
As I sat there in my mom's room, I felt those words reverberate through me.
This was certainly not the first time I had heard an insight like this from a woman who was working her way through The Body Love Workbook. But at that moment, I felt the full power of the awareness that was dawning for this woman. She was grasping the truth that our bodies are not just measuring sticks by which we can measure our worth... and that criticizing and guilting ourselves is ineffective and toxic. Our bodies are sacred, miraculous benefactors of all our love and work, loss and redemption, failure and success, and everything in between. Every single life experience unfolds because our bodies make it happen. Period. Without them, we quite literally would not be here today.
From the rest of her post, I could see how this woman's new awareness was starting to overrule a lifetime's supply of broken old beliefs that told her she wasn't good enough. She was starting to see how divine and precious her body was... how divine and precious SHE was. And as I sat there in my mother's room, at this enormous turning point in our lives, I was acutely present to the power of this realization, and to the meaning it would have in this woman's life.
Recently I created a t-shirt that says "love your body like your life depends on it". I think that if I had to reduce the essence of Body Love Bootcamp down to a single sentence, that would be it. You learn to love your body like it's the miraculous source of your life, because it is, and because you deserve to KNOW that and live like you know it.
We all know that it's easiest to appreciate our bodies after the fact--for example, when admiring old photographs of our younger, smoother selves and wishing we'd known how lucky we were back then. But I want as many people as possible to get how lucky and beautiful and miraculous they are NOW. I don't want you to wait any longer to appreciate what you've got; I want to support you in seeing and loving your body's gifts NOW.
On May 1, I will launch the Body Love Bootcamp all over again with a new batch of fresh faces and big hearts, ready to dive in and unravel the tangle of old beliefs that prevent self-love, reveling in a whole new kind of love and awe for our bodies.
I invite you to join us, and to spread the word to your friends. There are only 6 days left until we begin, and I want to reach as many women as possible with this course, honoring this pivotal moment with exponentially more self-love and discovery.
The details are here.
With love and gratitude for my mom,
Jen