As this Thanksgiving holiday begins to kick into full swing, I’m sure a lot of us are contemplating all the extraordinary people, experiences and things we are thankful for. As we create our list of gratitude, I would LovE to suggest not only including ourselves, but really taking every bit of our extraordinary selves in. How often do we thank our body? This INCREDIBLE soul case that we inhabit while here on earth, the miracle that is US? Personally, I know my body and I have been at war in one way or another for almost my whole life. Our disconnect caused a fracturing that lead to years and years of pain I wasn’t even aware ran so deep, until I began to come back home, INTO myself. So, this Thanksgiving, I decided to write my body a letter. One of acknowledgement, apology, gratitude and celebration. What rose within me while writing the letter was a myriad of emotions. Writing it was unshackling, but reading it back was deeply painful. I realized how for 30 something years I had walked around treating myself in a way that I would never treat anyone. It was heartbreaking, but a true awakening. Awareness can be excruciating, but it’s the opening of our way to freedom, if we allow it to be. We must not let it force us down into shame by judging our new awareness, but instead, allow it to help us rise up out of our darkness and into a more loving future. Will you join me on this journey? I would LovE for you to take a few moments to write a letter of gratitude to YOUR soul case. If it feels right, please share your story with us by posting your letter on your Instastory and tag @soulofeverle in your post. We are not alone in this journey and when we each share our unique self with others we help one another heal. This Thanksgiving, let’s heal together! I LovE you.
I have judged you and it has left no room to LovE you
I have stood in front of a mirror and picked every inch of you a part
I have deprived you of nourishment, of the joys of living, the flexibility instead of rigidity, the softness that you needed most, instead of the militant voices of other’s which eventually turned into your own voices of beratement
I have ignored your needs, your desires
I have shamed you for not living up to the standard I have been programmed to think you should uphold
I have disconnected from you completely, disowning you in every way I could other than physically dying and leaving you behind, only a hollow shell left to rot while my soul found peace amongst the stars
I have literally prayed to be anywhere but in you, with you, being you…
I want you to know I am sorry. I want you to know that I am not perfect and won’t be every day of our time together here on this Earth plane, but I LovE you and I am committed to being a better listener, to celebrating you more, to fulfilling your needs and desires, to cultivating joy from within you. I am committed to following your dreams, to feeling every emotion that needs to be felt and moved through you, no matter how painful, to allowing truth to move through you, because you are deserving of all the facets of you being shone light upon, so that you may be the brightest, highest reflection of divine light that you are here to be. I am committed to your fullest soul expression, even when I may not fully understand what is needing to come through. I am beyond grateful for you, guiding me as gracefully as possible through this world, holding me up when I couldn’t even begin to wrap my mind around the shame that paralyzed my body and the fact that I was even deserving of LovE or even living. Body…. THANK YOU! You have treated me with more respect and reverence than I have ever treated you. So, I may have judged you and left no room to LovE you, but now I promise to LovE you, more than I judge you.
My Thanksgiving wish for you is to look in that mirror and see what we see – a beautiful human, inside and out, who is kind, loving and so full of soul. You bring such joy and LovE to us but please save a little back for yourself and know that it comes from us.
I am 47 years old and really impressed. I think all young people could benefit from understanding that the body you are in and your looks are only facets of you. Self awareness, kindness to others, your mind and spirit, your humor affect the world monumentally more. Well done!
Thank you for this. It hits home and you are so brave to share it with us.
May you feel the beauty you share, the beauty we feel from you. I feel it. I see it. I know it’s there. I can only hope that you’ll see it in you as I do.
Thank you. Thank you so much.
All my love.
I wrote this on my blog years ago…
Dear Body,
For the longest time, you and I weren’t friends. My soul rejected you in every way it could. It screamed at you. It hurt you. It tried to ignore you, to deny you. And yet, no matter what I did, I couldn’t escape you. You and me, we are stuck together, and for the longest time, I thought it was in the way that gum sticks to the bottom of a shoe. But now I see that it’s more like a conjoined twin thing we have going on here. One day, hopefully in the far, far, far future, we will be separated forever, but until that time, we might as well be friends, right? I think I am ready now – for you to be my friend instead of my enemy. You never were my enemy, were you? You were just biding your time, waiting for me to mature up, waiting for me to accept you the way you’ve accepted me from day one.
The first physical scar I ever got was when I was 16 months old, going under a surgeon’s knife. I had a kind of cancer called neuroblastoma, or rather you did. I know a lot of people would call me lucky, for I am alive, and so many children, of both yesterday and today, are not. The scar I got that time is just above my belly button, for the tumor was attached to my right kidney. I was lucky. Both times they opened me up because of the cancer in me, they were able to go in the exact same place, open the exact same wound. You’ve bled so much for me, dearest body. And I know now that you are a temporary vehicle, my anchor to this world. Without you, I would not be here today. So thanks for being tough when I needed you to be.
You’ve taken all the blows for me, and the surface of you shows it. The viral encephalitis weakened you permanently. It took away so much. Our ability to walk independently, to hear all that there is to hear, and to open our mouth and to be understood. What many people take for granted we will never have again. And the scars… Our right hand and arm, our legs, our torso… The four back surgeries we’ve had totally marked up our torso. You may appear weak to the world, but to me, the soul, you are strong, because you are still standing, even after all we’ve been through. I remember the summer after eighth grade, when you had that palate lift, how you kept retching and throwing up all the blood you’d swallowed during the surgery, often in the wee hours of the morning. I didn’t know what was happening. I was bewildered. But of course I would be, because I was somewhere else while the surgery was taking place, as I always am. Where I go during these times is a secret, but it isn’t far, because I’m still tethered to you. Your beating heart is what ties us together.
Once upon a time, this letter would have gone in a different direction. There was a time when I rejected you so fiercely, and yet you stayed with me. I’ve hated you, but you’ve always loved me. It may be because without me, life wouldn’t be possible for you. And there were a gazillion times, and I admit, still are, times when I wish you could just be normal. Not different. Just normal, like everyone else. I’ll wish you were stronger. I’ll wish your right hand obeyed me more. Some of my reasons are selfish… I want to leave the past behind, and it would be so easy if only… Just if only… But the rest of my reasons? They’re not for me. The suffering of this world goes beyond my own. And I just want to help… That is all I ever want to do. Maybe together, we can find a way.
Love, Soul