Dear Body: A Letter to Yourself

@ASilentObserver

Dear Body,

You have been there as long as I know. All your efforts are to keep me well. All cells in you always work hard to keep me healthy. 

I try to provide you nutritious food most of the time. Pardon me when I fail to do so and give you junk to digest. 

Thank you so much my Body. 

Thanks Obs for this engaging post. 🤝 

@ASilentObserver

I really like the idea of writing a letter to yourself :) It seems a very tender and loving thing to do as usually we write and send letters to those we love and are close to, so why not extend that to ourselves! 

I also think these exercises can be a great opportunity for us to practice everything we know about empathy, active listening and kindness etc. towards ourselves. As often, we may be wonderfully kind to others but we can be overly harsh and neglectful to ourselves. 

I will make the time to write a letter to myself. It seems a wonderful way to practice self-care and love. 

Thank you for such a great idea and exercise! 

Sending love and kindness <3 

@ASilentObserver

Over a lifetime I have been on the lower end of plus size 16/18 and my body is lovely. It was the vessel where I birthed my son Jack. My greatest gift!! 💙

My body has weathered two careers teacher and health promotion consultant in community health . 

I was born with skeletal issues with my vertebrae and at age 48 I retired medically. I felt my body betrayed me. However it was a gift my son was just 10 years old I was home to see him blossom and baking him muffins after school was amazing. 

I have lost weight over the years … 45lbs on and off I recycle ♻️ them it seems. 

I now at 59 want more function amd mobility.  My goals have changed from vanity reasons to functional ones. 

I appreciate every year I attain. 

I volunteer in my local 50 plus group and run a local rural community Friends Who Weigh 12 women average age 75 ish and they lively women. I enjoy them all. 

My relationship with my body has had many ups and downs be kind to yourself. 

I want longevity to see my son with autism flourish in life. He is 20 too of his engineering class in university with 95 average and he doesn’t go to many classes unless the professor is brilliant teacher bc all materials are provided post covid slides etc …

My husband helps run both places I volunteer as well and he loves me at every weight and incredible support in life. 

My love letter to my body ♥️

@ASilentObserver

I have written many things but never to my body. I am not sure how this will turn out, but I'll make an honest effort 😊.

Dear body, you have kept me for many years and with little help from my side. I apologize for not helping you maintain a healthy body. I, first of all,l have been so disfied with your appearance and all the stuff ut had to endure. Ever since birth, I have been a reject from my parents to my adopted family/ Life has been extremely hard. I think I even tried a few times to get rid of you. But I see you are still here. Getting up in age and you keep going getting frail and things are becoming a challenge.

My brain has slowed down, and my steps are sometimes off-balance. I have aches and pains here and there, but you keep pressing on. You always keep me hyper and fearful. depression and so isolated. You've made me feel like I was born just for victimization and abuse. I weathered it all.

I appreciate your work, and then I wonder what's the point. Feeling like Humpty Dumpty that sat on a wall looking everywhere for someone to care. One wrong move and he fe;; off the wall, and all the kigs horses and all the kigs men could not put him together again. I do admire your perseverance

Your Host.

@ASilentObserver

Dear Body - i will pay extra attention to what i eat and drink, and consume in any and every way, shape, form and context of what i put in my body! i will do so because i care about my physical health as well as my mental health. also, i will exerise daily, but not overdo it so that i do not get overwhelmed by it being a daily habit!

@ASilentObserver

I love this idea! I will definitely be writing a letter to my body in my journal tonight! 

We are constantly bombarded by reasons why we should not like how we look or new insecurities society tells us to have, so it's crucial to take some time to be mindful about strengthening our relationship with our bodies. My body is so much more than just what it looks like; it keeps me nourished, allows me to move, walk, laugh, hug my loved ones, eat my favorite food, keeps we well rested, and so much more. As hard as it is with all the external (and internal) factors telling us we are not good enough, we need to remember that we are good enough just as we are. 🌻

@ASilentObserver

Dear Body, 

When I came into this life, into you, I had no idea, no notion whatsoever that there would be such demands! Oh, not the unsual ones, like growing and learning and making a way for oneself, those are a given when one enters a new life journey. No, the ones that were eye-openers for me were the demands from others! You were expected to look a certain way, walk a certain way, talk a certain way, be acceptable. 

And you weren't.

As you progressed past toddlerhood, the first unacceptable thing that was brought to my attention about you was the fact that you were blessed with a very unattractive overbite. Because of stereotypical depictions in the media, people assumed that the person inside you was untintelligent. They further assumed that the person inside you didn't care enough to get braces, which wasn't true, it had to do with the way your jaw was made more-so than with your actual teeth. Later, as puberty began, you developed nasty, dimply, Egyptian headdress-shaped thighs and a big butt, which in no way matched your 26" waist and tiny ***-and the 14-year-old within struggled to defend herself against an onslaught of teasing, bullying, and again, assumptions of lack of intelligence by her peers. They call this the "halo effect" but it never gave you a halo in my eyes. I hated you for it. Nobody took me seriously because of you. Even when the bullies threw rocks at you while you struggled to open my locker, when they tripped you and caused you to fall and then laughed at you for being hurt, or refused to accept you onto their baskball teams when choosing players-I didn't care what they did to you, because I hated you too. So I abused you, and starved you, and put you into situations that could have turned out to be much more dangerous for both of us had it not been for the little guardian angel that I am sure God assigned to us to protect us.

And the ironic thing is, I shouldn't have hated you, and, had it not been for societal expectations, I never would have. You see, unless someone pointed it out to me, I would temporarily forget your flaws and begin to love you, and then someone would begin to criticize you, and the cycle would start over again. 

Even now, in the final stages of life, I struggle to accept you, I still fight to perfect you and make you "acceptable." When I get cocky and think we are alright, we can relax a little, some middle-aged plastic woman will make a rude remark about you and how I shouldn't be buying carb-laden food, or a stinky little 20-something guy will comment to his buddy about that "big legged filly" who needs to lay off the chips and soda, and I begin to hate on you again. And we starve. Literally and figuratively. 

I am sorry for punishing you. But I can't stop now. I can't risk gaining the weight back. I want to be respected, and that means forcing you into a mold that makes you respectable. Discipline! We need discipline.

Signed, your person

@ASilentObserver

An Improved and Updated Letter to My Body: March 5, 2025

Dear Body,

It is true that I hated you. You were my nemesis from the time I entered public school (nobody seemed to notice you were sub-par when I attended Kindergarten at a Lutheran school) until just recently. Although I fought several failed bouts with your shape and weight over the years, I think the turning point came when a four-year-old boy approached me out of nowhere and asked me, in these exact words, "Lady, why is your *** so incredibly huge?" My God, I was floored. I didn't know what to say so I said, "Well, because I was born with this body, and I like it this way," and I walked off. But I lied, I didn't like it that way. So I went on an incredibly strict eating (or not-eating) plan. I lost nearly 100lb. Now I am thinner, but still not acceptable. You have lost your muscle, so the empty skin sags-you don't look any better now than you did before; you are only smaller, a size 10 smaller. But you are sagging with wrinkled, lackluster skin and hair so thin you can see the scalp. Your eyes are cloudy, one of your teeth has cracked (luckily it is a molar), and you try to faint when you stand up too quickly. You stutter. Every afternoon you hit a wall and I have to sacrifice my time to nap so that you can replentish your energy.

Is it worth it?

I have finally accepted the undeniable fact that it is not. If others think badly of me because of you, and especially if their judgements are based upon looks alone, that is on them. If you are healthy at a larger size, and therfore I, as your inner person am healthier, then what of their opinion? I actually do love you. You've carried me through so much in this life, you've been incredibly strong; you've accomplished so much. Despite the judgemental opinions of others. You are amazing and I intend to start treating you like the remarkable creation you are, and always have been. Beginning today. 

Love, Your Person

@ASilentObserver

i used to talk so negatively about my body, but now I’ve started working on it cause ik what you feed your brain is how your life will turn out to be. So yeah no more negative self-talk. Also I’ll write the letter in my journal tho. ❤️

@ASilentObserver

Dear body,,

We am sorry. We are s0rry for all the abuse that our alters and the outs1de world has caused to you. You did n0t deserve the selfh4rm,, the ED,, the hat3 and shame. You are beautiful and we pr0mise to start treating you b3tter.  <33