Leaving Behind Your Embodied Legacy
I want to offer my gratitude and respect to each one of you who are walking the eating disorder recovery path. I thank you for doing your individual work that is part of this embodied collective transformation.
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Your inner work ripples out, affecting the collective’s understanding of what it means to be a human in a body, giving other people permission to live more fully and embodied.
Indeed, this path of eating disorder recovery is the deepening into our own embodiment.
The deeper we explore our own embodiment, we open up to the ways in which we learnt to inhabit our own body based on what we learnt from the bodies of those around us growing up.
From a very young age, we absorb the world and the people around us. What we see shapes and molds our perceptions of reality - and what gets shaped along the way is our understanding of bodies.
Through picking up our caregiver’s body language, tone of voice, posture, movements, gestures and facial expressions, we inherit somatic legacies that get passed down, non-verbally, through the generations.
These inherited somatic legacies are passed down and impacts our somatic organization and sense of embodiment in the world.
It is when we become present to and question our inherited (and unseen, habitual and automatic) somatic legacies, that we can start to realign with our authentic embodiment - and can dream into our somatic legacies that we want to leave behind for future generations to be inspired by.
We can dream into and envision a world that is free from eating disorders and diet culture. This is the path we can pave right now, influencing our collective trajectory towards a more attuned and trusting relationship with our bodies and with life. This is the embodied legacy that we can leave behind for the generations to come.
If eating disorders did not exist…
What would you think about?
How would you show up in the world?
How and what would you eat?
How would you talk? What would you say?
What would your relationships look like (to your body, and to other bodies)?
What would be allowed? What would you say yes to?
What would you say no to?
What feeling would be felt? What walls would drop? What edges would soften?
What would you focus on or create?
What aspects of our society would cease to exist or transform?
What collective narratives would be rewritten around being a human in a body?
How would self-acceptance, self-compassion and worthiness fit into this new world?
What would you recover, uncover, or discover about yourself?
As we begin to dream into the embodied legacy that we wish to leave behind, we have to let go of who we once were and to fully grieve the ending that chapter. We let our tears water the seeds of our becoming, nourishing the tree that will provide shade for future generations.
When we walk the recovery path, we transform.
We go further beyond the place where we were before the eating disorder, often exceeding our expectations of what we thought was possible.
And the disordered eating recovery process is a transformational process both for the individual and for the collective.
Through our own process, we have the opportunity to leave behind an embodied legacy that transforms and shapes the ways in which future generations relate to their bodies, the bodies of those around them, and the body of the Earth.
This transformational process takes time (sometimes it takes many generations) and requires plenty of pauses to rest and digest, going at the pace that feels safe in our nervous systems as we stretch into the unknown territories of our inner landscapes.
We build courage strength, softness and patience so that the growth and healing that takes place can integrate, land fully and take root. Let your seeds anchor deep into the soil so that there are strong foundations from which your tree grows.
As you walk your transformational process, I invite you to reflect:
What are your personal values? What do you deeply care about and what brings you great meaning and fulfillment?
What steps need to be taken in order to align with and embody these values?
In embodying these values, how would you show up in your body in the world?
Imagine how this aligned embodiment could inspire and influence those around you in how they relate to their bodies and each other.
Envision how your authentic embodiment could leave behind a powerful and proud legacy that shapes future generations.
What is the somatic legacy that you will leave behind? This vision is possible when we embody it now.
Photo by Nikoline Arns on Unsplash