Tag: enchanted

21 Day Body Love Challenge – Breathe Easy

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Breathe

I wanted to talk about the systems of the body, but trying to get people excited about their periods and bowel movements had my own nose wrinkled. So instead, we’ll talk about a few key organs in these last days of the challenge.

Today we’ll breathe a little life into the lungs.

Most people, especially in this fast-paced society, do not breathe enough and do not breathe well. We hold our breath when we think, when what we really need is oxygen in the brain to fire up the neurons. We breathe in the upper lobes of our lungs most of the time which keeps us in stress response making it harder to relax. If not impossible.

On the contrary, when we breathe deeply into the belly we are compressing our internal organs and as we exhale, freshly oxygenated blood rushes back into the organs. Refreshing them if you will.

The quickest way to change your emotional, mental, or physical state is to change the breath. Did you read that? If you’re freaking out, change your breath. If you’re upset or sad, change your breath. If you’re tired, change your breath. It’s that simple.

The breath and the lungs are also closely connected to the heart chakra so breathing fully and deeply can help dislodge some of that energetic detritus, moving it up and out. Perhaps that’s why when we engage in pranayama or breathing practices we feel lighter and calmer.

I have made my own breath my friend. Not that it wasn’t before, it was just more of a boarder. Now it works for me. It soothes me in traffic, entertains me when someone is telling me the same story for the tenth time, helps me fall asleep and lets me dance longer.

The next time someone says, “Take a deep breath,” just do it. It will change everything.

“What oxygen is to the lungs, such is hope to the meaning of life.” – Emil Brunner

21 Day Body Love Challenge – Skin Deep

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Third grade

What color is your skin? It’s not white or black or yellow or red. It is on the spectrum of brown, everyone, everywhere. Some darker, some lighter, but all part of the brown family. Family. I’m a peachy ecru I think. My husband is a sagey tan. My yoga teacher is a light mocha and my date to the sixth grade banquet was 72% cacao dark chocolate.

If you thought this was going to be about sagging skin, smooth skin, wrinkled skin or freckled skin, you are mistaken. We have much bigger issues to address than the natural process of aging. We have a world to change.

So much ado over something that can’t be changed, but oh, how we try. If you’re pale you want to be tan. If you’re dark you want to be lighter. If you’re somewhere in the middle you want to be different or just like…someone else.

It’s very difficult to hide the color of your skin. I had an epiphanous experience in India a couple of years ago. Our little group of 20 white Americans was walking through the streets of a very small town of Indians. Everyone came out onto their stoops and balconies, got out of their cars and rickshaws, stopped what they were doing, lined the streets and stared at us. They were smiling and excited to see us, but it was still unnerving and, for the first time, I got it. What it’s like to truly be a minority. It changes your behavior.

I can only imagine what it would have felt like if we had been greeted with hate and ignorance instead of joy.

From fourth grade on, I grew up as a middle class white girl with blond hair in a Virginia suburb of Washington, DC. I was surrounded by people who looked a lot like me, different hair colors and slight variations on skin tone, except in the winter, we were all pasty.

Before fourth grade we lived in Maryland also in a suburb of Washington. Here, I was bussed to a “black school” so that we could integrate. It was the 70s. I was 7 and so I just got on whatever bus they told me to and went to school. Half of each of my classes from kindergarten through third grade was on the pale end of the spectrum, the other half the darker end. But to each other we were just kids. I don’t recall really knowing the difference.

My best friend was Monica, she was dark. She came to my birthday parties and was the darkest girl there. I went to hers and was the lightest girl there. We played with each other’s hair, roller skated together and played Barbie’s – white Barbie’s – together. She lived in a neighborhood with people who looked more like her and I, the same. We wished we lived closer together. I did not realize what an anomaly each of us was in the other’s lives until I looked back at photos from my birthday parties.

When we moved to Fairfax County I could count on one hand how many people in my class looked like Monica. Still I didn’t really notice. When do you suppose the prejudice gene develops?

As I was considering what to write about for skin it occurred to me that we are all just a shade of earth. Dirt. From pale sand to rich loamy soil, we are born of the earth, and back into the earth we will go. Dust to dust. To say I am white is to conjure an opposite of me. There is no opposite of me. There is only different from me. But our human brains struggle to categorize and parse, it helps us to understand. Somehow, somewhere in endeavoring to understand we picked favorites. And in so doing, we created prejudices.

Judging a person by the shade of their skin is like judging flowers based on their height. It just doesn’t make sense.

Go out, find the soil that matches your skin color and plunge your hands and heart deep into it. Become grounded in your own skin. Then go find soil that is far from your color and do the same. Blend them together, marvel at the beauty in the combination, plant new seeds and grow great magic.

“It doesn’t matter how long my hair is or what colour my skin is or whether I’m a woman or a man.” – John Lennon

[Photo: My third grade class. Hint: Monica and I are both in the middle row. She is on the left, I am on the right. I look pissed or mysterious, probably has something to do with what I’m wearing.]

21 Day Body Love Challenge – Hairs the Difference

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hair

I always wanted great hair. In high school there was a whole subset of girls who had this thick, luscious hair. Every time they’d tilt their heads or turn around, it was in slow motion. Boys would stop whatever they were doing, drop their jaws, then drop their algebra book down in front of their jeans.

I was not one of this subset. Oh, how I longed to be.

I tried. I had a shag in fourth grade, the Dorothy Hamill wedge in 7th, a perm in 11th so that I could look just like Julie Christie in Heaven Can Wait. I spent entire summers marinating in Sun-In to lighten the mousey blondish brown my hair had become. I frosted it – remember that? – pulling strands through little holes in an attractive plastic cap. If there was a way to process my hair, I did it.

In my late 20s my hair began to turn gray – I was expecting it, DNA being what it is, but I wasn’t ready for it. I dyed my hair red, brown, almost black, blond, platinum blond, golden blond. Keeping up with it was messy and expensive. But it felt necessary.

Then one day, in my late thirties, I stopped. My mother, who had held onto her youth with various shades of red from Miss Clairol, had decided to stop dying her hair. What came in what pure white. It was beautiful. So naturally I was curious what my hair was up to under the layers of golden blond.

I decided to let it go, see what nature had in store for me. My hair was shoulder length. I could see the new color coming in at the roots if I pressed my hair down, separating my part. I did this periodically over the next two years and several haircuts until I realized what I was looking at was my hair, just the way it was supposed to be. Somehow I missed the whole growing out thing, the dye that was in my hair simply had nothing left to hang onto and so it all faded seamlessly.

The number one question new acquaintances sheepishly ask me? Is that your natural hair color? My own hairdresser told me to tell everyone she did it. It’s this great color of white that works well with my fair skin and blue eyes.

But it was more than a great color, an easy transition; it was a release.

I remember when I decided to stop painting my nails. It was equal parts laziness and wanting to be more natural. Not too long after that I let go of eye shadow, then came the hair, then I stopped wearing so much jewelry. I have been slowly stripping away adornment and camouflage over the past decade or so. I’ve come out. As myself. I feel clear and seen and understood.

I remember a friend in college who swore no one would ever see her without her make-up and hair done. NO ONE. And I just thought, “How exhausting.”

The realization that I could just be who I was came slowly and I’m still working on it. This challenge has shown me where I still have some work to do. And by work I mean letting go. There’s no need to add anything, I’ve been doing that my whole life. This is about revealing, allowing bits of light to break through. Taking it back to basics. We all start out pretty perfect, the rest is just window dressing.

“I used to have straw-colored hair. Horses loved it.” – Jarod Kintz

21 Day Body Love Challenge – Listen Up

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ear

I never really gave my ears much thought until I met someone who hated theirs. Isn’t that usually how it works? Can you really hate or even be disappointed in a body part if you have nothing to compare it to? Comparison and competition, that’s where all the struggle lies – wanting things to be different than they are. Ah, the human condition.

My ears are smallish, flat against my head and hear well. I don’t see much need to elaborate. Although I do have this small section on the upper outside edge of my right ear that somehow grew shut when I was very young. You would never know it even to look at it, but q-tips find the darndest things. Despite that one anomaly they still hear just fine, although they haven’t always listened.

It wasn’t until I was in my thirties that I really learned to listen. Up to then I had always been so busy sharing my awesomeness with others, telling hoards of people who could not care less how I mastered some task or grew up in a great city or learned to fly. They were busy awaiting their turn to share their own embellished adventures. I would weave tremendous yarns masking my desire to be seen and adored with witty anecdotes and the appearance of self-deprecating humor to show how humble yet magnificent I was.

Then I was taught to listen, it was an accident. I’m sure this lesson had presented itself before but I was unprepared to see it for what it was. I was taking a series of classes on nutrition that were actually leading to a certification as a coach. And coaches have to listen.

And so I did. And it changed everything. Once I shut my mouth and quieted the thoughts that wanted to leap out of it, I heard so much.

So often we listen with the intent of responding, crafting our retort as the other person bares their soul. We’re not listening, we’re thinking. Selfishly. About how we can trump what they’re saying, solve their problem or redirect attention back to ourselves.

Maybe all they need is to be heard. Mostly that is all anyone wants. Waiting until someone was done talking, instead of interjecting my clever solution, allowed me to pause a full minute after they were done to actually consider if they needed me to say anything or if they had just worked out whatever it was. It was a game-changer for how I was in the world.

I find this to be so true of men and women. We are different, it has to be said. In general women want to talk through whatever is going on in their lives, not for it to be solved but to air it out, put it up on the line to flap in the breeze, let some of it blow away and whatever’s left deal with it. Men think we want them to fix it, whatever it is. We really just want them to agree or sympathize with us. We want to feel understood. I’m not sure how this works in same-sex relationships, I’d be interested to know.

The ear itself is like a fingerprint. No two are alike. Immigration photos in the U.S. used to be taken in profile and full face so that identification can be made by the ear if necessary. Today ears must show in passport photos or risk rejection.

Ears are used as identification in many cultures, although in a more aesthetic sense. How they are pierced or tattooed or painted or left completely unscathed help determine tribal membership. This is true in places like Africa and the Amazon of course, but also here in the U.S. If your ears are gauged and you see another person with gauged ears, there is a common interest and recognition. You get each other.

Ears are a little like knees; on their own they’re not so pretty, but as one of the sum of your parts they are appreciated and useful. Love your unique ears. Pierced, tattooed, big, small, long, wide, flat, extended. They are an organ that has a very special talent and rare ability to make others feel understood.

“How is it possible that a being with such sensitive jewels as the eyes, such enchanted musical instruments as the ears, and such fabulous arabesque of nerves as the brain can experience itself anything less than a god.” – Alan Watts

 

21 Day Body Love Challenge – The Eyes Have It

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little gigi

My eyes have always been my favorite feature. No matter how young or old, thin or not so, I have always been complimented on my eyes. It is an accident of birth that I have blue eyes. Everyone in my family has them. They are also shaped like everyone’s in my family which is to say, eye shaped. Not too big, not too small, just right for my head.

Eyes are the windows to the soul. At the very least they can indicate the level of life or crazy in a person. I’m sure you have looked into someone’s eyes and had the following experiences:

1. You can’t look away. There’s depth and love and you can see right through to their soul and their soul is your soul. Or perhaps you’re drunk.

2. You can’t maintain eye contact. There’s something judgmental and disapproving in their eyes and it makes you extremely uncomfortable. Or maybe you’ve been drinking.

3. You look into someone’s eyes and it’s vacant. No one is home. Energetically they have checked out. Or maybe they’re drunk.

All drinking aside, I’m sure you’ve had incredible experiences looking into another’s eyes. Felt things that you can’t explain, a familiarity, a jolt of energy, even love, even from a stranger.

If you are someone who simply cannot look another in the eye, start by looking yourself in the eye in the mirror. A person who does not make eye contact is generally thought of as untrustworthy. Maybe. I also believe there are a lot of people out there that don’t have the first clue who they are and they are scared to death they will  learn that they are bad people. This is almost never the case. So gaze deeply into your own eyes and fall in love!

I am an extremely visual person. Most people will tell you they are too. And it’s true for many, but I seem to have a keen connection between what I see and what I remember. Not photographic or eidetic memory, but certainly situational. And daily, not just big events.

It’s my super power. One of them, perhaps the most impressive.

For instance, my husband will leave his keys on my dresser, which he almost never does. I notice them there, without really paying attention. The next morning as I am journaling or maybe fresh out of the shower he will shout from the front door, “Hey,” unable to finish his sentence before I respond, “On my dresser.”

Clairvoyant? Yes, in the truest sense of the word – clear sight. I cannot predict the future, except to say I see many more opportunities to amaze my husband and some of my co-workers with the location of their lost objects.

My eyes are sensitive to light. This is true of people with light eyes. The less pigment the more sensitive. Same with skin and hair. I’m a little like Casper the Friendly Vampire. White hair, pale skin, light eyes, ghostly white, hissing at the sun until I can hide behind sunglasses.

At high noon in the middle of summer I will close my eyes against the brightness if I don’t have sunglasses. This does not bode well for the other drivers. So I must have many pairs of prescription designer sunglasses. It can be no other way. It’s a public safety issue.

As I get older my eyes are beginning to look more like my fathers. My eyelids becoming heavier, hooded making my eyes appear smaller and tired. Or like I just woke up after sleeping on my face for 12 hours. Unlike my dad, I can use a few magic wands, known as concealer and mascara to create the illusion of well rested eyes.

I like the wrinkles around my eyes, they convey a life lived happily. When I was young I couldn’t wait to have those little lines on either side of my mouth. I thought a nice set of smile lines with a matched set of crow’s feet made people look friendly and approachable. And I could see nothing wrong with that.

Still don’t.

“The soul, fortunately, has an interpreter – often an unconscious but still a faithful interpreter – in the eye.” – Charlotte Bronte

 

21 Day Body Love Challenge – This Nose Knows

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nose

I have the Palmer nose from my mother’s side of the family. Not so much the shape and size, although there are a few that share the same dimensions, but its uncanny ability to smell absolutely everything. Possibly I was supposed to be born a dog.

Of all the five senses, smell is the most evocative of memories. I can walk past an innocent looking person wearing patchouli and it will take me right back to art school, sitting in the apartment of friends and drinking beer while they tripped on my shiny silver earrings.

Just the hint of honeysuckle will transport me to the top of the hill, close to a busy street in Maryland when I was about 8 years old. A fence thick with honeysuckle vine pulled me toward every time I was near. I would pull a couple flowers off, pinch the end and suck the tiny drops of nectar from the center that the bees were so quick to consume.

If I happen to walk down the aisle with pool supplies, a whiff of chlorine takes me to a rubber strappy lounge chair at my public swimming pool with my best friends giggling about cute boys. We’re soaking wet, wrapped in towels, hair plastered to our wet heads. We pretend we’re older, like 16 and spread our towels out, positioning ourselves, not get the best view of the boys, but to present ourselves at the best angle.

Today, I will slow my car down with the windows open and drive drunk on the scent of orange blossoms. One crumb left in the bottom of the toaster oven will capture my full attention at the back of my house, wondering if I’m going to need the fire extinguisher. I can smell rain before it’s in my zip code.

The ability smell strongly impacts our capacity to taste. Many individuals who have lost their sense of smell because of an accident or freak medication mix up, find themselves thinking suicidal thoughts. It’s that important to our well-being and happiness.

I used think my nose was big. It’s not petite, but it seems to fit may face, or maybe I grew into it. After seeing the science experiments coming out of plastic surgeon’s offices these days, I am quite content with the nose I was given.

I have this little plateau close the bridge of my nose that I was scarcely aware of until a biker told me his ex-girlfriend had “that same cute little flat part at the top of her nose.” Such an odd observation from an unlikely admirer has stayed with me for over 20 years.

My nose is a genetic compilation that resembles a little bit of the Palmer lineage and a lot of my dad’s side of the family. It’s a good sturdy Scandinavian nose with a hint of Euromutt. It’s functional, it’s unadorned – tried piercing once, it would have none of it – and it works like a champ. I love everything about my nose, its size, its shape and, of course, its super powers. Plus, it’s a great place to keep my collection of fabulous sunglasses.

“A nose which varies from the ideal of straightness to a hook or snub may still be of good shape and agreeable to the eye.” – Aristotle

21 Day Body Love Challenge – Loose Lips

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sexy lips

La bouche. The mouth.

Think about all the gifts of the mouth. It can be a mating call without uttering a word. It is an important part of the respiratory system. It is the front end of the digestive system. Try not to think too hard about that one. It breathes. It speaks. It eats. It kisses. It yells. It lies. It is brutally truthful. It is incredibly versatile.

I have full lips and like most body parts, they have been in and out of style. I wasn’t sure what to do with them when I was younger. I used to curl my top lip under when I smiled because it did this weird flat thing that made it look unlike anyone else’s in say, Seventeen Magazine. But then Julia Roberts came along and when she smiled her top lip flattened out the same way, and no one seemed to mind. So I stopped the sneer/smile and went natural. A whole lot less to think about.

Over the years many utterances have passed through my lips. I can be pretty witty, but as a younger me I emulated my hilarious father and let fly sarcasm sharp enough to cut the jugular on anyone’s self-esteem. I’m not sure if I was trying to elevate myself, this is typically why people are mean, or if I truly thought I was funny. Somewhere along the line I realized it was unbecoming at the very least and very lonely at its worse, so I aimed to change.

My teeth have had more of a traumatic history. Born with a space between my front teeth that was a few years too early to be cool like Madonna’s, I was always a little self-conscious about it. The Universe heard my pleas for “normal” teeth and on an autumn weekend as my best friend Lauren and I were playing air hockey at the mall I slammed my face into the table with such force that half of my front tooth flew into space never to be seen again. It was a serious game.

I felt for my tooth with my tongue and realized something was amiss. When I asked Lauren if it was bad she had a really hard time lying. Her mom wasn’t due to pick us up for an hour or so and being 13 I just didn’t see the point of alarming anyone when there was no blood, it was Saturday and there were boys to stalk. And we were  AT THE MALL.

Her mother was not at all happy with me so you can imagine my own parent’s reaction. But nothing was done until Monday, so I rest my case.

I am now the proud owner of lovely veneers that have closed the gap and created the illusion of beautiful natural teeth that my upper lip can spread flat against when I smile like Julia Roberts. Just like Julia Roberts.

“How did it happen that their lips came together? How does it happen that birds sing, that snow melts, that the rose unfolds, that the dawn whitens behind the stark shapes of trees on the quivering summit of the hill? A kiss, and all was said.” – Victor Hugo

 

21 Day Body Love Challenge – Sticking My Neck Out

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1516017-R1-E037

Audrey Hepburn. She had the perfect neck according to my father. Before you get the wrong idea about dear old dad and his preferences for certain body parts, I should disclose that he was a pretty amazing artist. Trained at the Philadelphia Museum School before graduating from Penn, he took his talent and created a business out of art. We know it now as graphic design, but back in the day he would do actual oil painting portraits of sports figures and business professionals to be used in marketing materials that he would also create. So his interest in anatomy was based on his love of the human form. Mostly.

The neck. Before I had heard my father wax poetically about Audrey Hepburn’s swanlike neck, I had never given my own a second thought. It was the bridge between my head and all that other stuff. It helped me look up and down and side to side. After I understood what he was talking about I became obsessed with comparing everyone’s neck to my own. My mother had a nice long neck, no doubt what attracted my father to her, so I assumed my chances of neck approval were pretty high. Ultimately I ended up just shy of long and graceful and got something more like good enough and sturdy.

As I age I appreciate my neck more and more. It’s very flexible, even if it’s a little stiff upon waking. Years of yoga have created a great deal of mobility and space. I love that I can easily look over my shoulder, something I took for granted until I saw my own mother contort her entire upper body to look behind her.

However, like my mother, my face seems to be slipping into my neck. Hers went fast, mudslide fast. One day she had a beautiful long neck, the next, there was skin draping from her chin to her throat. I was horrified that this fate would befall me as well. I have watched my own face very carefully. It’s happening but the descent seems to be much more gradual allowing me time to adjust along the way.

What I do have are these little tabs (I refuse to call them jowls) that dip down a little on my jaw line. I’m going to blame my great grandparents for over-pinching my cheeks as a child. They were pretty irresistible. I have found that if I smile, they go away, they get pulled back up into my cheeks. So smiling has become my anti-aging salve. I do it as often as I can, mostly it’s not too creepy.

No matter how long or short or loose or firm the neck is, it holds a tantalizing secret. Located at the nape of the neck is a magical little erogenous zone. When activated by something as simple as the breath of a lover, goose bumps shoot to the surface and knees buckle. To quote a friend, “Never underestimate the power of a kiss on the back of the neck.” Swoon.

We can’t talk about the neck without talking about the throat, because we can’t talk at all without the throat. The neck and the throat together make up the throat chakra. This would also include the thyroid gland. For many women this is a problem area, all of it. When the throat chakra is blocked, which happens mostly because we feel we cannot speak our truth, issues arise.

It’s been difficult for our species – goddess – to own our voices and reclaim our power. We have been riding a roller coaster for centuries, secretly harnessing our own power but never fully understanding how to express it. It can be a precarious line to cross. Fear of being misunderstood or worse, of not being heard at all, often stops us from even exploring the edges of our personal power.

Sing, chant, hum, begin to flex the goddess muscles so that your truth can emerge. So that you can speak from your heart about all that matters to you. So that you can liberate yourself from your own fears. It’s a practice and it’s not always easy, but once developed, you will know no other way of being.

There is no part of the body that is non-essential, but the throat has the ability to change entire worlds with a single sentence. If you find yourself locked in a world that does not resonate with you, the voice is often the key.

“A short neck denotes a good mind. You see, the messages go quicker to the brain because they’ve shorter to go.” Dame Muriel Sarah

[The photo is not Audrey Hepburn (obviously), but my own mother circa 1968.]

21 Day Body Love Challenge – Give That Girl a Hand

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photo (9)“Parents can only give good advice or put them on the right paths, but the final forming of person’s character lies in their own hands. ” – Anne Frank

Hands are fantastic. They are expressive, flexible bags of 27 bones each, including the magical thumb.

I am quite enamored of my own hands. They help organize the creative debris in my head into an actual something; a piece of art or jewelry or a story.

As a child I was forced at gun point to take piano lessons – sort of. I wanted to know how to play the piano and maybe be in a famous rock band, but that business of lessons and practicing really ate into my tree climbing time. But sitting for an hour on a piano bench in the home of an ancient woman, probably 40, who had plastic on her furniture had its rewards.

I easily picked up the flute, which I fake-played all the way through the whole seventh grade. I stopped trying when I realized my future would probably involve more moving from chair to chair, playing to the polite applause of old people and not the cover of Tiger Beat magazine and the screaming adulation of girls who wished they were me. And cute boys. I was pretty good at archery which seemed to take some dexterity. AND my typing skills nearly set the typewriter on fire.

I still type fast and I can still type without looking at the keyboard or the screen. To freak my husband out, I’ll type a whole paragraph straight from my imagination onto the screen while staring at him the whole time. He hates that.

A knuckle-cracker since kindergarten or before – I can seriously remember cracking my knuckles when I was six, sitting next to Donna Wilcox on her living room couch – I have developed a little arthritis. In my right ring finger top knuckle. Just there. Curious.

Hands grip and hug and slap and punch and pet and caress and point and flip off and beckon. Hands can hold on and let go. They can give. They can receive. There’s almost nothing hands can’t do.

In 100 years hands will probably evolve into something like a mitten claw with super speedy, hyper flexible thumbs. The other four fingers will be webbed together just to hold devices. I’m glad I still have 5 fingers on each hand. More rings.

There’s a lot of symbolism around fingers and hands.  In Ayurveda, each finger represents an element. Lines of the palm are read to predict the future. Areas of the palm and fingers correspond to different organs and areas of the body in reflexology. Indians decorate their palms with henna to awaken their inner light and whole languages are spoken with the hands – and not just Italian. Hands are powerful.

My hands are beginning to show their age. The skin is a little less smooth, the veins a little more pronounced, but I still recognize them as my own.They have taken a beating, playing hard when I was younger, typing for hours on end, flipping off drivers – although I hardly do that anymore – holding tight to tools as I manipulate wire to make jewelry. They’ve been scraped and dragged on gravel roads, hit with more than one baseball and nearly frozen. Smashed in car doors, run over by big wheels, cut with knives, and worse, paper. And they’ve caught me a million times as I fell from bikes, steps, a stage and trees.

My favorite thing I’ve done with my hands lately? I put a ring on the left one, or rather, he did. There is no other body part as busy or as involved in my life as my hands. For that I thank them. Let’s give them a hand!

“As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands, one for helping yourself, the other for helping others.” – Audrey Hepburn 

 

21 Day Body Love Challenge – Armed and Fabulous

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photo (8)

I really, really want to say I love my arms, but I started shaming them into ¾ length and long sleeve shirts so long ago I don’t even know what they look like.

At some point in the recent past I realized my upper arms were not going back to where I found them in high school. They were not rock hard and sculpted. They were thicker than the business end of a baseball bat, and they had somehow acquired an apron.

So no, I don’t love what my arms LOOK like. From the elbow to the wrist they’re not too shabby. It’s the armpit to the elbow that is most troubling.

I do, however, love the capabilities of my arms. They are masters at holding stuff. Often too much stuff. I cannot leave a single bag of groceries in my trunk for a second trip, they must be stacked and strung on either arm, to the extent that my shoulders have threatened to break up with them over and over again. They pick up more than the rest of me can handle, because sometimes they like to show off. What they lack in beauty, they make up for in attitude.

But they have a softer side too. They have held many wonderful things: babies, puppies, kittens, loved ones, books, camera equipment, a yoga mat and my laptop. They have hugged the hump of a camel, the trunk of an elephant and the neck of a horse. They have do-si-doed, walked arm-in-arm and escorted a friend or two to a safe place to “sleep it off.”

They have allowed me to console and congratulate. They have surrendered blood when needed and endured the weight of my body in handstand or plank.

They’re a great place for sparkly, dangly and shiny bracelets and once upon a time they adored interesting watches. Today, they are mostly bare, teaching yoga has removed the desire to adorn them all the time, but on occasion a meaningful mala may find its way there. In India they were blessed twice and wrapped with string by a Hindu priest.

At the end of my left arm, at the wrist, I have permanently inscribed my Sanskrit name – Damini. It means lightning and when I’m feeling less than powerful it’s a reminder that I am a force of nature.

Other than that, there’s very little visible history located on my arms. A polio vaccine scar the size of nickel I received as a young child and less than a handful of tiny thin white lines here and there indicating some run in with something sharp. Overall they are mostly plain and useful.

On an energetic level, the arms are connected to the heart chakra, so any issues in the arms may be related to the inability to receive or give unconditional love. To others, as well as the self. Especially the self. Yourself.

So give yourself a big hug. Wrap those suckers around your beautiful body and squeeze. And when you’re done with that find someone else or something else to hug. It’s good for the soul. It’s good for humanity.

“A mother’s arms are made of tenderness and children sleep soundly in them.” – Victor Hugo