Eumorphia

Eumorphia Is that a word? I just made it up. The benefits of a classical education 🙂 The opposite of dysmorphia, as in ‘body dysmorphia’, a condition where you become obsessive about how your body looks, the bits you hate, how flawed and imperfect it is compared to how you see others. So what would eumorphia be? Intense pleasure in how your body looks…? Hmm, doesn’t narcissism cover that?

So I’m wanting eumorphia to mean something more like taking pleasure in your body, how it feels and how it performs, both as a functioning system (it breathes and poops and alerts you to danger etc) as well as in specific training to enhance performance in some way (running or yoga practice, for example). By my definition I’ve been working on body eumorphia for many years, coming from a place where my body felt unsafe and didn’t seem to be functioning well by any measure.

Fast forward a lot of years and some painstaking self-observation and re-writing of some old stories and I reach a heady moment where I suddenly realise I am happy to inhabit this body of mine. It’s my home, for my whole life. It’s good to feel safe and happy when you’re at home!

I was with a yoga teacher lately, about 5 years older than me with some current health issues that were distressing her, causing both physical pain and mental anxiety. Her body is that of an ex-dancer, long lithe limbs and effortless flexibility. The kind of body I used to admire in yoga class, for the easy ability to make shapes in a way I could only dream. She commented on my body one day as we chatted about various things (including my unabashed propensity for hugging trees…) She said she wished she had a body like mine, in her perspective it was a body that was ‘strong and grounded’. And so it is, or it is becoming. I always think it’s striking to hear someone else’s opinion, especially when it’s a touch envious! It illuminates so much about how we think of ourselves and of others and how we make endless comparisons in various ways.

The conversation happened while I was away on a week long yoga retreat. It was quite wonderful, slow restorative practices twice a day and plenty of great company between times in a beautiful location, surrounded by nature, being fed with delicious food. I loved it and my nervous system thrived; I felt less stressed than I can ever remember. But my physical body needed something more. I listened to it, as it asked for stronger and more vigorous movement. I went walking in my free time and I swam each day in the wonderful pool after evening class. Eventually my needs built up to the day when I got up early to do my own more dynamic yoga practice followed by a short run before the heat of the day, all before the first yoga class. I felt so brimming over with energy and a physical joy in movement, it would have been unfair on myself to ignore that.

It didn’t escape notice and there were some comments from my companions about how strong and athletic I am. I tried not to laugh outwardly, though I was highly amused at how they evaluated my physicality. They see this, and I am coming to see it myself too. I’m not the sick girl I used to be, who shuffled slowly around the garden for exercise. And only on a good day. On bad days I needed help washing my hair in the shower, as I didn’t have the strength to hold my hands above my head long enough to lather the shampoo.

So I have understandable euphoria now at all these amazing things my body can do. It’s not just the greater strength and athleticism, I also take genuine pleasure everyday in my improved digestion, healthy appetite, lack of headaches and sickness and so on. These are mundane miracles to me. Not that my body is a model of perfect health. I have some minor symptoms which have been bothering me for some months now, and back home I finally got an appointment with my long-term GP for a consultation (the NHS is in such a state right now that it takes weeks to get an appointment with any doctor at all, and I have had to make do for some time with any available doctor, not the one who actually knows me).

We chatted in my consultation, the doctor clearly pleased to check in with me generally after quite some time. As a ‘repeat customer’ she remembers my history clearly, hopefully as a ’success story’! As I stood up to leave, I felt her appraising me, looking me up and down. And she commented how wonderfully healthy I looked. She reminded me that ten years ago I presented very differently and told me firmly to take note of that change for myself. She smiled in delight as I told her I’d taken up running and weightlifting. And she grinned as she delivered her last bit of professional advice: keep doing everything you’re doing, the running and weights, keep up with the yoga, get outside and be in the sunshine. Just keep it up!

Once I’d closed her office door, I like to think she wrote either ‘euphoria’ or ‘body eumorphia’ on my patient record! 🙂 She can’t rewrite the earlier part of my patient record but I can rewrite my story and I am happy to be doing so. Thank you, reader, for coming along with me.