Photo from this year’s Midsummer Sisterhood with Henriette, Nicole, Thamires and Lucie. Berlin, July 2023.
“The flip side of the desire for perfection is a hatred of what is perceived as less than perfect.” - said Naomi Klein in a recent interview for Guardian about the wellness culture.
She mentions also a theory by Barbara Ehrenreich, in which she states that when feeling out of control of the outside world, people turned to their own bodies as a site of control.
With a massive help of the wellness industry, it became your own responsibility and basically a moral imperative to take control of your body, make it as perfect and healthy as possible. Push yourself harder, stretch more - we’re being advertised by shiny happy people from sports ads. Forgetting that:
Those people’s jobs is to exercise, they chose to use their body as a main source of income, so of course they will be more flexible and fit than anyone who has to squeeze any physical activity between a job and daily chores.
Thin doesn’t mean healthy - unfortunately thinnesses can be a sign of disease or disorder, and fat body can be healthy and fit.
Physical exercise shouldn’t be a moment of self bullying: pushing harder to achieve a certain look. If you’re practicing very hard physical exercise, please ask yourself if you’re doing it from a place of love for your body, or punishment. Challenging yourself can be wonderful, but when it’s meant for you to grow. If you attach to it certain requirements and goals it can become yet another dreadful item on the list of “to dos”.
Try letting your body rest - what that would mean for you?
Rest can also be active of course. I found that calm, slow movements of yoga with a good teacher that knows it shouldn’t be about performance or looks, can bring the very much needed balance.
Once again Midsummer Sisterhood 2023, with Henriette, Nicole, Thamires and LucieBerlin July 2023
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