A magical, marvelous, glorious, and wonderful Friday to you! If you can’t tell, I’m super excited. My birthday is tomorrow and that gives me a reason to celebrate myself–something I must admit I don’t do nearly enough. Now while I’m quite interested in doing the damn thing for myself, I can’t deny that this has also given me an opportunity to grow. Wanna hear how? Well watch the video.
Dear Body of Mine,
I owe you a most sincere apology. For just about your entire existence, I have not liked you. I have spoken of and to you in most unkind ways. I’ve called you horrible names like fat, awful, and ugly. I’ve compared you to others and found you to fail to measure up. I’ve wished you were something you were not. And each time I felt you failed me, I blamed you. I actually felt like you were a curse to me. In short, I have hated you.
You may wonder why I have hated you and abused you. I could pontificate about all of the underlying psychological issues and social conditioning that I may have and have possibly been exposed to. However, the simple truth is that I’ve never thought you were good enough.
Why did I think that? Well, I’ll admit that I just never liked the way you looked. In the beginning, you were just skinny. Too skinny. And remember, this wasn’t during the time that it was cool to be skinny. I felt that you subjected me to teasing and taunts from others. Laughter filled advice about eating sammiches were painfully abundant for me–despite the fact that I did, in fact, eat many sammiches and more. Yet, you weren’t filling out any time soon.
It would be many years later when you would begin to fill out. I would be about 24 years of age. Yet the problem with that is that you didn’t fill out the way I wanted you to. You didn’t give me the curves I wanted. You didn’t fill out to create the hour-glass physique I so desperately coveted. No, there would be no Tocarra Jones’ body for me. Instad, you kept your athletic physique, complete with its narrow hips and wide waistline. But you didn’t even have the decency to give me Serena Williams athletic type. You just gave me straight body with a tire around my waist. And I hated you for that. Each time I saw another woman with the coveted hour glass frame, I thought you to be an even greater failure. Why can’t you look like her? I’d lament. You never answered me either. Instead, you just kept calling for me to love you as you were and I refused.
Then came what I felt was the ultimate betrayal. Pregnancy. After the birth of The Fizzle, you developed stretch marks in places I never wanted, never even realized one could develop there. You began to bulge and droop in places that I didn’t think were meant to bulge and droop. And let’s not even talk about what you did to my stomach! I worked out throughout my entire pregnancy to combat such changes, yet they were all for naught. You still drooped and bulged and you didn’t even have the courtesy to return to your pre-pregnancy state, post pregnancy. Then you gave me the dreaded C-section pooch. It was hard enough tolerating you before then. Now how was I supposed to appreciate you? I swore I would never forgive you. And I didn’t. Until now.
Now here we are, 10 years post pregnancy. I’ve since accepted that the pre-pregnancy body is NEVER returning. And while I don’t like it (not one bit), I realize how cruel and superficial I have been. I have treated you as if you’re good for nothing more than an aesthetically pleasing accessory. How wrong I have been! You are so much more than that. You have carried me through this world. You even brought forth life! How amazing is that? And thanks to yoga, I now know you can do some amazing things I never even thought possible! You are the vessel through which this soul of mine wanders through this Earth. You lend your hands to help others up. And what’s more, you use your hands to pull yourself up when you fall down. You love me so much that you will pad yourself to protect me when I am wounded. I have finally realized that your worth doesn’t lie in what you look like. Isn’t that ironic though? I’d have a fit if someone deemed me less than worthy based on my appearance, yet I meted that exact harsh judgment on my damn self. I have no excuses or any justifiable reasons for my ill behavior. All I can say is that I was ignorant and immature. I didn’t know. And I’m so sorry that I didn’t know and even more sorry for the way I have treated you. But since I am not big on sorry’s or words, I’ll allow my actions to show you how much I have changed. I’ll affirm you when I look at you instead of cursing you for everything I hated about you. I’ll reframe your so-called flaws. Where I once saw failure, I’ll see Life and splendor. I won’t compare you to anyone. I’ll appreciate you for who you are. I’ll feed you well and move you so that you’re as fit and healthy as you can be. As my Daddy used to say, I can show you better than I can tell you. And while I have never actually said this to you before, please allow me to close this simply by saying I love you.
Ok, where and how do I begin? I say that because I’ve been absent for so long I almost forgot how to write. That’s actually tragic for me because I love to write. Well, I’m going to give it a whirl anyway. So let’s see . . . I have a story to tell. Wanna hear it? Well, here it goes. I told you on Friday how difficult the past year was for me. I also told you on Friday how one of the things I’ve learned I needed to do was release. I needed to release a lot of the stories, people, habits, and basic junk that I was holding on to that was in turn holding me back. Whew! That was a lot. As I discovered, one such thing I needed to release was my wound story.
What’s a wound story, you ask? You know what I’m talking about. The story I created about myself and my life based on the hurtful thing(s) that have happened to me in the past. And don’t get me wrong. I don’t have a story for every “bad” thing that has happened to me. But the ones that really hurt? You bet your sweet aunt Fanny (if you have one, that is) that I had a story. It was a good one too. I repeatedly told it to people. But wait a minute. Before you get the wrong idea about me, I feel the need to explain. I didn’t tell my story to everybody. Come on, now. I have a little more tact than that. I simply told it to the people I trusted. Repeatedly. As many times as I could get away with it. However, as we all know, good times don’t last always. So they began to grow tired of it. Oh sure, they loved me, they just weren’t interested in hearing the same story. And who could blame them? I mean, I’m sure someone could, but I didn’t know those people so I was forced to switch tactics. Since they were no longer interested in hearing my story, I found the one person who was loyal enough to listen to it as many times as I wanted to tell it. I could go hoarse telling my story to this person and they just let me go on. You want to know who this loyal one is, don’t you? Yeah, you do. Don’t worry, I won’t make you beg. I’ll tell you. The person was Me. I told myself the story over and over and over and over and. . . well, you get the point.
My wound story became the one thing I could trust. It was the reason for my misery. It was the reason nothing good was or ever could happen in my life. I was in the valley. And not only was I in the valley, but can you believe Life had the audacity to knock me into the valley with no water, no food, and no comfort at all? That’s rude as hell, isn’t it? *Just nod your head* Well, I’d been in the valley for so long that I’d forgotten that there were other places in the world. I’d forgotten that there were peaks and mountains, and blue skies, and hell, even plains. I was so low I forgot all about the plains, y’all! All I knew–all I saw–was the valley. I’d convinced myself that there would never be (nah nah nah nah nah nah) a better love because the valley would swallow anything good just for looking in my direction.
I was going strong in my valley wound story. I was so strong in fact that I told my story to a friend (yet again). She loves me so much that she said to me, I know it’s been hard. You’ve had a hard time. But trust me when I say that those days are behind you. So now you need to get ready to receive blessings because they’re coming for you. Poppycock! And she called herself my friend! I thought she loved me? Why would she taunt me with such things? So since she obviously didn’t hear me all the other times I told her my valley wound story, I decided to repeat it again. I gave her the Cliffs Notes version. I said, Well, I want to say you’re right. But I can’t. You know I’ve been in the valley for so long that it’s all I know. I want to believe that good things will be mine. But I know that other shoe is going to drop so I’m just waiting for it. Bless my friend’s heart because she very calmly shouted at me, “Je’Niece, there is no valley! The valley is gone! If you’re still in the valley you’re only there because you keep dragging the valley with you!” Now first of all, I wanted to know who she was talking to like that. Secondly, I wanted to know why she clearly wasn’t getting what I was saying. Third, I wanted to–wait, could she be right? Was I, in fact dragging the valley with me instead of walking out of it and leaving it behind? I did a quick scan of my life and I realized that I could not give the counter argument I’d had ready to give the entire time she was talking because I wasn’t really listening to her. Nope. I had to take a pause for the cause, and third of all, consider the possibility that she was right. But if she was right, then that meant . . . That meant that I had to release the valley wound story. Aww man! I liked my story though. I’d gotten it just right. I had all the dramatic effects. But there was no way I could move forward while chaining myself to the past. So I decided to let go. Or at least I decided I wanted to let go.
How did I let go? Slowly. I cried. A lot. I cried until I tried to cry for the pain and found I could no longer do it because there were no more tears to cry. Then I wrote. A lot. I wrote down everything I was feeling. I wrote angry letters to people and things and then burned them. And then I forgave. I forgave everyone who hurt me and let me down. I even forgave myself for not being strong enough, wise enough, or good enough to have never let it happen or to be over it by that point. It wasn’t easy, but it was well worth it. And while I still have the memory of the pain, I don’t have it embedded in my heart (or my head). I also don’t have it bronzed and polished on my mantle.
Now wasn’t that a good story, children? *Again, just nod your head* What about you? Do you have a wound story you need to release? If so, I strongly encourage you to let it go. There really is so much more waiting for you on the other side. I’m not telling you that you need to do anything that I did–except forgive. I’m a firm believer that forgiveness is a great way to healing. However, I am telling you that you need to find whatever it is that will work for you to loose your grip around your wound and the story of your wound so that you can heal. I know you want that for yourself and I want that for you. Besides, what have you got to lose? Better yet, think about what you can actually gain.
Did’ja miss me? I wish you could hear me say it like Tommy Davidson’s character, Varnell Hill, from Martin!
Boy, oh boy is it good to be back! Hi there. I’ve missed you. Let me just say I’m sorry for being absent for so long. But I needed the time away. I wasn’t doing so well and there’s no way I can be of service to you or anyone else if I’m not serving at (and from) my best. 2016 was a difficult one for me. More difficult than I would have imagined it to be. It knocked me down for a while. But like the song goes, I get knocked down, but I get up again. So here I am, up again. Now I can’t say with certainty that I’ll never get knocked down again. But what I can say is that I’m pretty confident that I’ll get back up yet again.
So please feel free to come back. I’ll have more content (and content more consistently). It’s good to be back. Looking forward to what we do this year.
Putting the CL on that ASS! 
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