Question number 1 when I meet people who haven't met this version of me just yet is always,
"Nicole, How did you get so into the body?"
CW: eating disorders / seizures / alcohol
I’ve been called to share this for a while, and thanks to some not-so-subtle synchronicities today appears to be the day.
I have never liked my body (but apparently always loved the same shade of root-chakra-red).
Some of my earliest memories- and many of my childhood friends have sadly reminded me- are of *hating* what I looked like. Hate enough to starve myself, over-exercise, under nourish and ignore what I actually needed for years. From about 17-26, if I weighed anything over 100 lbs (UK folx that’s about 7 stone) I would cut my calorie intake to below 1500 a day. I was addicted to Bikram yoga (sometimes doing two or three sessions in a 24 hour period), avid user of hydroxycut, and slim fast, and ran constantly like my life depended on me losing weight.
Doctors warned me of high levels of ketones in my body, which means I was not getting enough nutrients to fuel my addictive physical lifestyle...Several neurologists have told me that some of this neglect is directly related to my seizures. Let’s be super clear that this was *my* doing. I’m sure you can imagine I was/am a stubborn little gal.
While auditioning for graduate programs, I had recently suffered a small stroke, and was in a full arm cast from an injury I sustained while drinking (which I did heavily and often) which was taking extra time to heal due to a decade of malnutrition in my bones...
While at the auditions, I was asked why I wanted to go back to training and before I had a chance to respond, my body answered.
“To remember how to listen.”
The past five years have been a listening that has literally saved my life by saving my relationship with my body. I’m called to reconcile with my vessel every day.
To thank her for her capabilities.
To honor her needs.
To respect her shapes.
Acting taught me to honor this body as an instrument and my connection with her to spirit has brought me to you all...hopefully helping all of us approach the body as co-creators on this walk we have been gifted.
Our bones are sacred. Our muscles and fat and skin and scars are sacred. THE VESSEL is the bridge to Spirit. The vessel was chosen...THIS VESSEL, the one you are in right now reading this...was chosen to be perfectly imperfect and gorgeously HUMAN for whatever you need.
We just have to be human enough and kind enough to LISTEN to what it is here to say.
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