I Am

Recently, the young women's president in my ward wrote a blog post about body image that greatly impressed me. While I don't talk about it very much, it's a topic that's very personal to me, and that I think about a lot. I think there are very many of us, male and female, who struggle with how we perceive ourselves through our body, and I have found that while I might admire in passing someone who is particularly good-looking or thin or well-dressed, the people I truly admire and even envy (and I use the word "envy" in a positive, I-want-to-be-like-that kind of way) are those who are most comfortable with the person they are.

One of the reasons I feel strongly about this is that it is one area in my life where I actually have been able to change for the better, and to feel happier for it. I am not perfect in how I perceive myself, nor am I exactly where I want to be, but I am much more comfortable in my own (literal) skin than I once was. But the second reason that I feel so strongly about this is that believing our body to be a blessing is a unique part of our theology as Latter-day Saints. We believe that our soul consists of both our spirit and our body, that an important purpose in coming to earth was to acquire a physical body, that we will be resurrected and receive a perfected body in the eternities. We believe that there are things we can and must learn with a body, and that there is no other way to progress. And sometimes I think we talk far more about what this aspect of our theology means in terms of caring properly for our body through keeping the Word of Wisdom and maintaining our physical health (which are undeniably important) than about what this aspect of our theology means for loving and appreciating the bodies we have. We talk a lot more about being forgiving of the imperfections in our characters and in our efforts to improve them, and less about being forgiving of the imperfections in our bodies and in our efforts to care for them.

I have a well-practiced camera smile, and I used to hate pictures of myself that caught me unawares before I could shift into the right camera angle. I still prefer my camera smile, but it was a huge turning point for me to realize that where I see in the wrong angle a receded chin, an arched nose, an asymmetrical smile, a short waist and small bust, thick eyebrows, and a dimpled chin, other people just see me. It's not that they don't see those things, and I'm sure different people pay varying degrees of attention to them (but never nearly as much attention as I pay). But there's a lot more to me than my chin. Recognizing that I am made up of much more than the sum of my parts allows me to see all of those things as just pieces of who I am, along with the other parts that I give less credit to, for better or for worse - large eyes, long limbs, dark hair, long eyelashes, slender fingers, knobby toes, a birthmark on my forehead, a gap in my lower eyelashes, a smattering of gray at my roots.

To say "I am not my body" does a disservice to my body and to the God who gave me that body. I cannot dissociate myself from the physical being that I am. But to say "I am only my body" is equally wrong because there is so much more to me. I am that asymmetrical smile and dimpled chin, the large eyes and the birthmark, the skin and nerves that are overly sensitive to cold, the wart on my finger that keeps coming back, the knees that pop when I go down stairs. I am also my inability to hold back tears when I am sad or nostalgic or hurt or embarrassed, and I am my love and loyalty to the people who are important in my life. I am my fear of confrontation and my power to overcome that fear, my shyness and my ability to listen. I am my tendency to overthink and my desire to have faith and I am the way I feel when I've pushed myself to run harder or do more or be better than I thought I was able. I am the product of my family and my education and my friends and my best friends, my callings and my talents and the talents I've tried to develop and the talents I just don't think I have, my leaders and my neighbors and the strangers who smile when I pass and the dog I took into my life, the books I read and the movies I watch and the music I listen to and the things I create.

Most importantly, I am the child of a God who is the only one who knows me fully, body and spirit, and so is every person I meet.