Like just about everyone I know, my life has been reoriented in ways I couldn’t have imagined just three months ago. With limited options for moving around, I’ve learned to inhabit my home in new ways, relying on the mobility of my laptop to find new places to work hour by hour, day by day.

Rest restores balance and resilience to a stressed system. Habitual, forced action is a barrier to deep wellness. The ingrained cultural values of advancement, innovation, and improvement have left many of us depleted and out of touch with the natural rhythms that have sustained and evolved life on Earth since the beginning of time.

One way to begin to chip away at the roots of body image is to begin to ask yourself questions as you dress and adorn your body: Who is this for? Am I wearing this for me? For you? To fit into the dominant culture? Am I wearing this because I’m supposed to? Because it’s what is expected of me? Or, because it’s what I actually want to be wearing?

‘Body image’ – as it exists in Western Industrial Culture – is not an innate human concern. It is one that is implanted in us. One culturally produced image at a time, we are taught and told what a body of merit and value looks, sounds and behaves like. We are even told what a body of value and merit prioritizes…

As a little girl, I loved having a body. I could run, roll down hills, jump, cartwheel, spin until I got so dizzy I fell over, swing, climb, and after some instruction, tumble and flip, too. Sure, sometimes I got hurt, skinned a knee, rolled an ankle. But my body, miraculously, healed itself.