Article: My relationship with my Body.. Dance or Not to Dance.. IS not the Question..

When finishing up in 2019, I made a few promises to myself. One was to write more. I enjoy writing and it allows me to just get my thoughts out there and share a bit of myself to the world. So, this year once a month, I will be getting away from my book posts and the occasional crochet post a focus on writing. This will be new for me, so please be patient and kind.

For those who follow me on social media a couple of weeks ago, I did a huge blast about the well-wishers and my weight. I have never been a happy person about my body. Yes, I know that I am loved and my body is God's temple. Let's Get Real. None, of that knowledge, did help me be happy with my body. I am a survivor of sexual abuse. There may be the truth with all the talk about that being a correlation is probably true. Shrinks know more than me. That does not change how I feel about my body.

I have a loving husband who regardless of the scales does still find me sexually attractive. Before I was married, I have never been turned down for a good time because of my looks.  That does not change how I feel about my body. After all, sex is sex.  How many times have people in the aftermath thinking of sex say "What was I thinking?" I do not even find that person attractive.

This all leads me up to one thing. The one and only time I have ever liked my body is when I was dancing. I love to dance. I have not found dance, I do not enjoy and it is the only time that my body feels beautiful. I have no reasoning behind these thoughts they just are.

Now, I know for some this may sound weird and I am ok with that. I grew up in a religious home with grandparents who strongly believed that dancing is a sin period. Well, then this person a child began to feel that the one thing that brought me to myself was a sin against God. So, I poured myself into the church and stepped away from dancing and feeling beautiful. As years passed I realized that if David a man after God's own heart can dance through the streets of Jerusalem, "Why cant's I?".

Here is the problem, in those years of the occasional dancing and not keeping it in my heart. This leads to illness and weight gain and my diagnosis of Spinal Stenosis. The doctor told me no more dancing. So, Dancing the thing that makes me beautiful is off the table again.

That leads me to 2019. December I started to do my own research and realized that maybe tap, jazz, street, and pop dancing was out but, maybe perhaps I can go back to ballet. I started feeling good again about the body that God gave me. So, step one is to get into shape again so restorative yoga it is. I do not know if I can ever put my toe shoes on again but maybe just maybe I can learn to dance and love me and my body again.