Self-Compassionate Body Scan Guided Meditation

I stumbled into this embodiment work and realized that I've been coming at it from several angles for years. My youngest children are halfway to 5 years old and I feel like the insanely challenging baby/toddler stage is finally behind me. As I work to integrate all that I've experienced through this 8-year childbearing season, embodied spirituality keeps cropping up.

From such a young age girls receive messages about the acceptability of our bodies. I have always had a basically healthy body image, yet my relationship with my body became more complicated throughout the years of pregnancy, pregnancy loss, childbirth, infertility, c-section recovery, breastfeeding, the physical labor and exhaustion that comes from caring for children. My body endured things that I didn't know she could, things that I didn't have a category for and that mind didn't have capacity to stay with her through. I'm working to heal that mind-body-soul connection and have compassion for the ways in which I abandoned my body.

In this season I've been walking deeper into some experiences that I'm committed to heal and integrate so that I can move forward into what feels like a new season with true wholeness and acceptance for all that's happened. Part of this is a new belief in the sacredness of my body and my ability to embrace the scars, both physical and emotional, that live within my body.

I love the idea of Jesus as the "disabled God," as seen by how he shows up post-resurrection with scars and wounds still visible. Even in the picture of the Eucharist, the body of Christ, broken for me, the blood of Christ, spilled out on my behalf. It's a beautiful picture, and one I find so much familiarity in as I consider my labor story and my c-section scar.

Together with you in this path to wholeness.

LINK TO INSIGHT TIMER

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