When my father died a short time ago, he was in good health, and of normal weight. I thought about this while doing yoga this morning. He was. He told me that he had a good heart, that he had never been so healthy. And yet he died, just after he told me this, just before his 76th birthday. All his life he trained; cycled everywhere, ate relatively healthy, went for walks in the woods. If he put on too much weight, he fanatically went for low carb, and then he was normal weight again. And we think that if we do all these things for our health, then we are guaranteed a long and happy life. It’s a kind of prize, perhaps, for doing everything we were told was wise. It does not seem fair that she who has smoked heavily until she was a hundred years old should not be punished for it in any way. It seems completely unreasonable that he who only eats and eats, walks and stretches and all, should not be punished for it! Can he get a girlfriend? Should he not experience a heart attack and early death – that’s what we have heard! The demand for justice, perhaps that is what makes us want to shame the bodies of others, tell them that they have the “wrong” body. You who do something wrong, you must be punished – then it also feels so safe for ourselves: In this just world I will be rewarded if I do something right, where others who make mistakes are punished. The opposite is so scary: That death strikes even if you do everything right. That all this chaos we call life is not fair. I have all sorts of statistics and research in front of me: If you have friends, if you are closely connected to your community, then you are healthy, I read, loneliness is more dangerous than anything else. My father had many friends who loved him, four daughters who loved him. If you eat healthy enough and are in close contact with nature, then you do as in the “blue zones”, I read, in the blue geographical zones on earth, surprisingly many people get extra old. My father lived in his own blue zone, he should be 100 years old. The fragility of the bodies is scarier to me now than ever. My father was in good health, he should not have died. I breathed as best I could on my mat this morning, trying to keep the hateful thoughts away. I can hate my body with such intense intensity that it hurts. The recent debate has rekindled hatred. I’ve written a book about this, I know, I know, I know that self-loathing serves no purpose other than to cripple my mind. I think: I deserve to be in this world, even if I’m not pretty enough and thin enough. I think: Why can I not just stop eating so much! What’s wrong with me? I think: Why should I take as little space as possible in the world? Why should I be pretty or thin, for the eyes of others? I know that happiness is not having a BMI 23! I think: I can be allowed to exist here on this carpet, 2X1 meters. I must be allowed to take this place. I think: My body is something I have to control. I think: My body is me. Why should I be checked? I have to stop hating my stomach, because it’s me! I think: Self-love will radiate from me as self-confidence, and spread to all relationships around me. The love I give myself I can give to others. I think: Happiness is BMI 23, 22, 21, 20. I think: The only ones who are really directly affected by my body are my child and my husband, and everyone who hugs me and holds me, and everyone else can just hold jaw. I stood in “dog looking down” and concentrated on pressing all my fingers into the mat, without slipping up at the index finger. It’s harder than you might think. I thought that these hands that look like they are pushing the carpet away; I want open hands to receive. I was working on centering myself today, on my mat. I wanted to find the core, not just the core muscles. When I do yoga it is without mirrors, without music, here in this room I am not an object, I do, I am movement and breathing, inhaling, exhaling. When I stand like that, I think: What am I doing in my life that is not a reaction to other people; which is not jumping and bouncing and anger in debates and laughter at other people’s jokes, what do I give out of my own energy? I think: I want to give energy to others. I want to give love. I think: Hahaha, the atheist who thinks of the Bible, “faith, hope and love, but greatest of all is love,” and I think that yes, greatest of all is love. The last thing I said to my father was “I love you”, the last thing I said to my friend Vera before she died too soon – before she turned 43 – was “I love you”, and who are we, what is being human: It is only love that makes sense in this world. When someone is going to die, their body is inexplicable and completely unjust end, and for most it is love until the very last breath. The most beautiful thing about a human being is not their BMI, but the love in their eyes. I thought about that today. Inhale, exhale.
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Bodies without control – Expression
