Body Shape – curves from Heaven
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Body Shape – curves from Heaven
“A woman in sacredness knows that every curve she has is her angle of Heaven that only she is capable of reflecting.”
Natalie Benhayon
I have had a picture that I am fat, so no matter what weight I actually am, I always feel fat and see myself as fat. This is an experience that many women share. But what are we really feeling when we say, “I am fat”? What if we were to explore deeper and discover what is underneath these words?
For example, I have always felt big compared to everyone else because I was tall for my age at school and tallest in my blood family. If I were to ask myself what is behind this I would say that I didn’t want to stand out and be me because I was afraid of being derided and people not liking me. I also did not want to delve deeper into why I didn’t want to stand out.
What is it when we feel ‘fat and ugly’ or when we don’t feel like we fit in? In my experience, we are often trying to live up to imposed pictures of how we should look or how we should be.
A woman in her sixties recently shared the impact of early childhood images of the ‘perfect girl’, which in her day was Shirley Temple, whom she described as having ‘a cute factor’ that she could never measure up to. In this way she was set up from her earliest memories to not appreciate her own natural beauty.
Recently I attended a Women in Livingness workshop ‘Understanding Self-Worth – your key to unlocking the confident you’. This particular quote from the presenter, Natalie Benhayon, blew me away:
“A woman in sacredness knows that every curve she has is her angle of Heaven that only she is capable of reflecting."
Wow! That is huge. It certainly blew all the body image stuff right out of the water for me. You see, I have had a body image issue most of my life – from about the age of 8 or 9 when my mother asked why I was fatter than my sisters when we ate the same food. Of course she didn’t mean to set me up for a life-long body image issue, but the comment did that very thing.
What Natalie said was a game-changer: instead of saying, “I need to lose weight”, I could now ask, “Does my shape show the angles of Heaven I truly am?”
And . . . if your body does not show your own angles, shape and curves you were born with, i.e. does not show the truth of who you are, maybe we have to ask ourselves, why are we hiding our true selves?
Natalie presented in the workshop that when we are struggling with our own body image we do not in fact have a lack of self-worth issue; what we are struggling with is denying our sacredness – the truth of who we really are as women.
This shone a light for me on all those ‘feeling fat’ days. I never really felt a woman when I was growing up, so I denied my sacredness by becoming a tomboy and a keen sportsperson. Recently I have understood what sacredness is – a feeling of deep stillness and connection to myself. It is not searching for something outside of myself, rather it is valuing myself and what I bring to others. It feels really natural and effortless in that it is not something I need to ‘achieve’ or ‘work on’.
Part of sacredness is knowing that our very own angles and curves come from Heaven.
Sacredness and the responsibility of women’s bodies
The sacredness of a woman’s body, the responsibility of this and what it means in everyday life.
I know I do not always drop into sacredness, into the gorgeousness of my essence, or truly reflect the angles I have from heaven. But when I do, I can feel the joy of reflecting something heavenly, and from there it is easy for me to love and respect my body and understand the beauty of what can come through me.
However, when I deny my sacredness and don’t love myself – indeed if I loathe myself by, for example, thinking ‘I am fat’ – how can I say ‘no’ to what does not honour my body? How can I appreciate my natural body shape, weight, curves and angles?
Saying “I am fat” is not only a putdown to oneself – it is saying to others that it is OK to run yourself down, and for others to run you down. This is the opposite of sacredness and the opposite of appreciating our angles and curves.
I know it is time I knocked this self-loathing and body image nonsense on the head! Time to acknowledge and accept that:
It is OK to stand out. Indeed, I am outstanding. I do not need to fit in.
It is OK to not look like everyone else. This does not mean I am fat or ugly. I am simply uniquely me.
I have tremendous value and I am worth taking care of.
The curves, angles and shapes I was born with are exactly what I need to reflect all that I am, as a woman, in this world.
Filed under
Body image, Fat, Sacredness, Self-worth, Self-esteem
