Sorting Laundry

I've been reading this book by Jack Kornfield.
"After the Ecstasy the Laundry."
In it I have found answers to the battle with my body.
I have known this eating disorder is my most ruthless teacher.
For a long time, it only taught me how to suffer.
I am not in control.
I am not able to force this body to submit.
I am human.
That is what she teaches me.  I am human. What a scary thing to be...
I have been trying to whip this reality into submission.  Force it to be different.  Force myself to be a super-hero with rock-hard abs.
My back has been flayed open so many times, I can't count the scars.
Now I am looking at them.  And loving their raised surfaces.
I do not try to deny any of it, anymore.
I can look at pictures of myself at every different weight and love them. I can look at the pregnant ones, the skinny ones, the heavy ones, and all the mediocre in between.  They are all me.  I have come to settle into the folding of my life's laundry.


"I used to pride myself on how calm and detached I was, never upset or letting myself feel anger, beyond all stress, flatlining my brain.  But what about my body?  Which organs have I been stuffing it all into, to the detriment of my health?...I'm starting to respect my body, my need for rest, for exercise, to find the physical wisdom I lost for so long."
~Tibetan Lama

"It's also helpful to realize that this body that we have, this very body that's sitting here right now in this room, this very body that perhaps aches, and this mind that we have a this very moment, are exactly what we need to be fully human, fully awake, and fully alive."
~Pema Chodron



"Particularly we need to find a way to bless our wounds and the darkness we find ourselves in.  It takes patience to bless our woundedness, because we haven't been taught a respect for it  But if you do bless your body, you notice that you find what is right for you.  You have the kind of pains that are right for you, as well as the kind of joys that are yours, the experiences that you have honestly earned."
~Zen master

"But someday our body will present its bill, for it is as incorruptible as a child, who, still whole in spirit, will accept no compromises or excuses, and it will not stop tormenting us until we stop evading the truth."

~Alice Miller