Pledge to My Body

One of my favorite quotes about accepting our bodies...

Pledge to My Body

I hereby agree from this day forward to fully participate in life on earth. I agree to inhabit the appropriate vehicle for participation…a body. As a requisite for the sustaining of that body, I agree to eat consciously. This agreement fully binds me for the duration of my stay on earth.

As an eater, I agree to honor my hunger, eating when I feel hungry and stopping when I feel full. I recognize that as the biological need to eat is fulfilled with greater awareness, the benefits of well being will increase.

Because the essence of my participation in life is one of learning and exploration, I agree to experience uncertainty in my eating. I recognize that my relationship to food is a learning process and I will inevitably make mistakes. Therefore, I agree to accept my humanness and imperfections and not blame and judge myself.

As an eater, I accept pain, I recognize that I may suffer pain when my body is disturbed by my choice of food or eating habits. I may also experience pain when emotional and spiritual hungers are confused with physical hunger. During these times I agree to sit with and hold a safe place inside myself in which to explore painful and difficult feelings. I recognize that to be fully alive I must be willing to heave the courage to sit with a full range of emotions.

I agree to work on finding the time and energy necessary to feed and care for my body. I pledge to speak lovingly and kindly to myself and to incorporate movement into my life in fun and joyful ways.

I further agree to accept that I have a woman’s body; a body that is imperfect and vulnerable, curved, and rounded. Because I am giving up the need to be perfect, I am willing to accept m body at its natural weight. I realize that my female body has qualities that mark my womanhood and that have a profound role and effect on human kind.

I recognize that eating joins me to all humanity and at its deepest level is an affirmation of life. Each time I eat, I agree somewhere inside to continue life on earth. This choice to eat is a fundamental act of love and nourishment, a true celebration of my existence. I choose life again and again and again.

- Wellons, L, Celebrating the Body (1997), Austin, TX