What are we losing by allowing others to decide how we exist?
We push our bodies to the limit because someone said it’s good for us. Eating, drinking, exercising in ways that are determined by others. Experts, scientists, doctors, all there to give their two cents on what and how we should be. We end up blindly following rules, dogma, routines and health fads with no consideration or self exploration.
Are our bodies really our own? And if so, how are we allowing others to dictate, decide and decode them?
The mere act of self reliance, self discovery and self care is becoming a political and revolutionary act. Taking agency over our health, and our wellbeing is a statement of defiance and solidarity.
Especially as a woman in this moment in time, I’m increasingly being dictated to, and told how and in what ways my body and its functions are still a political and social bargaining chip. Instead of moving towards body independence, we are still being told how to be; what to weigh, what to wear, how to heal and how to express and impress our corporal identity.
Human bodies are a commodity, a major political agenda, and a currency that is far beyond just health and wellness. Multi billion dollar industries are built on re-defining, re-arranging and re-telling of the human form, and for women especially it has become essential that we buy into the idea that EVERYTHING we are starts and ends with our face and our body parts. We are not a sum of our parts, we are just parts.
The human body is under constant attack, surveillance, and scrutiny. We belong to someone else from the day we are born to the day we die. Especially the day we die. We have to ask for permission to exist and we can’t decide for ourselves if we wish to cease to exist.
How can we create change in the world if we can’t claim ownership over our own bodies? How can we claim to be free thinkers, doers and beings if we are told to ask for advice and permission from others on how to exist ?
How can we create personal body freedom?
Till the next episode… Rest, reflect and recharge.
Featured image by : Alexandros Koromilas
Eleana Kouneli 