Hello Every Body,

Like every parent I know, I've been sick again all month. ug. Spring. As soon as we recover from one thing, the next thing comes home from school with Atti and if I'm lucky I have just enough time to get caught up on laundry before I'm back in bed. Honestly, at this point I think I'm having the hardest time with the boredom. I've long since run out of things to entertain myself with that don't require me to think through stuffed up sinus headaches.

It is hard to not be able to meet my goals or do my work or put my energy towards what I would have if I wasn't spending so much time coughing. It took me a long time of being a sick person before I really internalized the importance of taking care of myself and not pushing through it. To really believe nothing matters more than taking care of my health took many years of me flailing against reality, throwing myself up against barriers until I collapsed, trapped in bed for even longer than I would have been if I had just slowed down. 

It is really hard to make peace with doing less, letting go of dreams, reprioritizing goals, but if that stuff doesn't rest on a foundation of the reality of your body needs, it was always an illusion anyway. There is a very real need for financial support, but after a point, financial goals are an illusion too. So much of what a lot of people think they need to survive is really about what they need in order to compete for status. A reliable car is fine, but a fancy car gets people's temporary admiration. Quality clothes that express your personality accomplish their purpose, but certain clothes following certain trends and made by certain people elevates your status. Even things like which college kids go to or extensive extra curricular activities are no longer a guarantee of much of anything other than how people see you. 

We spend so much energy trying to appeal to that status competition and telling ourselves that status will achieve security. But it doesn't. Status is always temporary, and it doesn't feel like anything. Chasing status costs everything that feels good. All the things that actually make a life feel good to the one living it. Love, joy, freedom, play, sensation, connection, rest.

I'm not this sanguine about being sick every day. I still have plenty of days where I have to let some grief escape me like a pressure cooker. But after enough years of fighting I finally reached a place of acceptance. And once I did that I could actually get to the work at hand - taking care of the only body I have to get me where I want to go.

This month we've been talking about the third Marrow of Body Loyalty - Self Acceptance. We're digging in to the Body Loyalty plan this year, and we're starting with the Marrows - the purpose behind our efforts. Self Acceptance is the Marrow that your emotional health efforts lead towards. Learning how to process and regulate your emotions allows you to accept the reality of your circumstances instead of what you wish they were. That's how you can find solutions for your problems that will actually work.

Every morning I make a TikTok based on what I'm thinking about for Body Loyalty. I've been treating it like my stand up open mic to figure out what people are responding to as I develop this philosophy. I'm sharing more of them on Instagram and YouTube now to spread those messages out to wherever the people are.

This month's most popular:

The next Marrow we'll be digging in to is Self Care. This is the aim of our physical health care needs - and it is not at all  the "buy a bath bomb" "treat yourself" "brunch and mimosas" imposter you see sold in advertisements. It is about learning how to meet the physical needs of the body - food, hygiene, exercise - in a way that will sustain you against dehumanizing systems.

We'll tackle that in March!