As we begin our healing work with the body, there is something really important that we need to acknowledge and address:

The environment in which our bodies live impacts the way we feel inside our bodies.

While this program is aimed at helping you develop a healing relationship with your body, we also need to remember we live in a world that doesn't create safety for ALL bodies. Various forms of violence and trauma regarding race, gender, sexuality, disability, finances, religion, and more impact how we feel in and relate to our bodies.

Many of us exist inside a society that prioritizes productivity over mental and physical health and wellness, conditioning us to see our physical, mental, and emotional limits as problems and obstacles rather than cues around our needs.

Add to that, relational and emotional trauma and neglect within our most significant relationships, and we begin to see all that our bodies are up against.

As we unpack our current relationship with our body, we can get curious about how our body relationship was impacted and formed by trauma and shame-based messaging - how it was impacted by the environments we've lived in. We often unconsciously internalize our external environment, especially when we are growing up, which means our internal environment is often a reflection of how our bodies, our emotions, and our inner experience were related to by others.

As we hold space for these impacts, hopefully, we can also begin to bring compassion to our bodies and all that they have carried. We might begin to shift our perspective from one of betrayal to one of being incredibly misunderstood or mistreated.

One of the reasons we may feel at war with our bodies is we receive messaging that our bodies can't be trusted. We may even see this in the mental health and wellness community as well. Some of the messages we may have received that have influenced our relationship with our body are:

• We rest/play after the work is done.
• If we need rest, we are lazy.
• If we express emotion, we are too sensitive or overly dramatic.
• The body is sinful and needs to be controlled.
• The body is indulgent and has inappropriate desires.
• Anger is bad.
• Dysregulation is a problem.
• If you can talk about it, then it must be healed.
• Mindset over emotion.
• What would you add?

These messages can be explicit (spoken directly) and/or implicit (implied through responses and actions). We often internalize these messages - they become the ways we relate to our bodies.

We often experience the impact of the environment and messaging as shame and frustration with our bodies and their responses. We learn to relate to our bodies through a harsh and critical lens. Sometimes these experiences and messages are so deeply internalized they can feel like they are a part of who we are, but they don't have to be. We can gradually unlearn old ways of relating to our bodies while we internalize a new way of relating to our bodies, one in which we feel supported.

This is an invitation to get curious around how your environment throughout your life has had an impact on your relationship with your body, with your inner system. It is also an invitation to consider a new possibility: one where we recognize the environmental impacts while cultivating a healing relationship with ourselves.