Oy Vey - it's a good thing I didn't read that comments page or I might have blown a gasket.
I am heavily involved in the healing arts as part of my Craft and I coach people whose health is suffering due to being overweight. I have helped several of my clients lose the diabetes or hypertension or cholesterol meds through nutritional intervention, moderate exercise and just better self-care habits. I take great pride in that.
It is also a big part of the reason why I am currently in Yoga teacher training. You are absolutely correct that most people are disconnected from their bodies. It is a vicious cycle where being overweight causes emotional and physical discomfort/pain, so they start to dissociate from their body, resulting in more destructive or just unhelpful lifestyle habits, not realizing that it is exacerbating the pain and discomfort they are feeling.
Many of my female Reiki clients had their dissociative cycle begin with sexual abuse. They learned to view their bodies as betrayers - if they weren't pretty, they wouldn't have "attracted" their abusers, so they develop a dissociative disorder and pad their bodies with extra weight as a result.
The fact that there are people in the Pagan community that buy into the fashion magazine BS about body and image issues just disgusts and disappoints me. I find there is a similar mindset in the Yoga community as well...if you're at all overweight or larger than the ideal reed-thin women in studios everywhere, someone will just sniff that you must be a "Kapha", referring to their limited knowledge of Ayurveda.
I'm hoping my work will support people, men and women, who want to be healthy and feel beautiful and sexy and invigorated and capable of powerful magic in their lives...and not feel judged or undervalued because they don't fall within very narrow ideals of beauty or "health".
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Date: 2009-07-30 02:53 am (UTC)I am heavily involved in the healing arts as part of my Craft and I coach people whose health is suffering due to being overweight. I have helped several of my clients lose the diabetes or hypertension or cholesterol meds through nutritional intervention, moderate exercise and just better self-care habits. I take great pride in that.
It is also a big part of the reason why I am currently in Yoga teacher training. You are absolutely correct that most people are disconnected from their bodies. It is a vicious cycle where being overweight causes emotional and physical discomfort/pain, so they start to dissociate from their body, resulting in more destructive or just unhelpful lifestyle habits, not realizing that it is exacerbating the pain and discomfort they are feeling.
Many of my female Reiki clients had their dissociative cycle begin with sexual abuse. They learned to view their bodies as betrayers - if they weren't pretty, they wouldn't have "attracted" their abusers, so they develop a dissociative disorder and pad their bodies with extra weight as a result.
The fact that there are people in the Pagan community that buy into the fashion magazine BS about body and image issues just disgusts and disappoints me. I find there is a similar mindset in the Yoga community as well...if you're at all overweight or larger than the ideal reed-thin women in studios everywhere, someone will just sniff that you must be a "Kapha", referring to their limited knowledge of Ayurveda.
I'm hoping my work will support people, men and women, who want to be healthy and feel beautiful and sexy and invigorated and capable of powerful magic in their lives...and not feel judged or undervalued because they don't fall within very narrow ideals of beauty or "health".