‘I believe I am not my body’
August 17th, 2007
Writing in National Public Radio’s “This I Believe” series, Lisa Sandin documents her experiences as a person growing up with an “alternately formed body.”
I was taught to respect my body, but to remember that it was only a vehicle that carried the important things: my brain and soul.
… In my alternately formed body, I have learned lessons about patience, determination, frustration and success. This body can’t play the piano or climb rock walls, but it taught all the neighborhood kids to eat with their feet, a skill it learned in the children’s hospital. Eventually it learned to tie shoes, crossed a stage to pick up a college diploma, backpacked through Europe and changed my baby’s diapers.
Some people think I am my body and treat me with prejudice or pity. Some are just curious. It took years, but I have learned to ignore the stares and just smile back. My body has taught me to respect my fellow humans — even the thin, able-bodied, beautiful ones.
I am my words, my ideas and my actions. I am filled with love, humor, ambition and intelligence. This I believe: I am your fellow human being and, like you, I am so much more than a body.
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on Friday, August 17th, 2007 at 6:00 am and is filed under body image, disabilities, first-person, personal stories, public attitudes, stigma.
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September 20th, 2007 at 9:52 am
Thank you all for commenting on my essay. In writing my essay for NPR, my hope was to give society a glimpse of what we non-perfect human beings feel like as we walk the planet watching millions obsess with their weight, wrinkles, and breast sizes.
As a child I wanted more than anything to have two perfect arms that could do all the things my friends could do. But it became abundantly clear that, unlike a starfish, I would never grow a new arm. So I began a journey of self acceptance and embraced my body with all its imperfections.
I’m a vegetarian, yoga instructor and a meditator who is very aware of my body. I don’t deny its aches or wrinkles. When I am doing yoga I am very present within my body. I take extremely good care of my body; it is my home. Its limitations have certainly formed my personality, my ambitions and my drive, but I am not just my body.
People’s perceptions of me are defined by their point of view. That I can not change. If they wish to see me as disabled, so be it. We are all judged and labeled by others in so may ways. My labels are many. I’m the mother of an autistic child, the sister of a mentally disabled man, a middled-aged white woman, the wife of an immigrant, and so many others. I see myself as a vibrant spark of light living in an able-body.
I choose my point of view because it empowers me. I choose to see the people I encounter each day as sparks of light as well. Some shine a bit more dimly than others, but they all shine. Perhaps I should have said, I am not just my body. But I really do believe my spirit living inside this body is what makes me who I am.
Namaste.
September 15th, 2007 at 1:02 pm
Like Lisa Sandin I would like to think that I am not my body. I would like to think that I am not my stretch marks, my thighs, my scars. But, unfortunately, believing and wishing and thinking do not change anything. One’s body affects the way they interact with their environment, their peers, their mind, their spirit; a twisted body can produce a gnarled and bitter soul.
That sounds somewhat pessimistic but it is nonetheless true in many cases. But a less dramatic way of phrasing that: Although one’s body is simply a vehicle for the true self that is the mind and soul, the mind is always bustling with thoughts of the body, and the soul with the daily things that are too harsh and cold to think.
The body can be a vehicle but for 99.99999% of people this just will not be true. Our culture, as the previous responses state, is one that encourages people to think of themselves as no more than their sweaty, sunburned body; it teaches people to hate and disparage their souls.
September 12th, 2007 at 4:41 pm
I agree that Lisa Sandin’s statement “I am not my body” is an improvement over the common American quest to accept one’s body. Allowing the mind and soul to characterize and define one’s self is not something I have been taught to do and the idea of doing so is empowering!
It is confusing to me though, how to use the mind and soul to define one’s self without disassociating with the body. Critiquing my body based on the American’s idea of the “perfect body” has a separating effect on my mind and body in that the ideas I critique myself with are not my own. Personally, a further disassociation from the body, although a positive change for Sandin, could be as harmful as dissatisfaction and disgust.
September 12th, 2007 at 8:42 am
Americans often talk about the negative effects of the media bombarding our culture with unrealistic body images, but advice columns tell us to just “learn to love our bodies.” Though I guess this advice is better than telling readers to hate their bodies, it doesn’t get to the real issues that many American’s have: we allow our bodies to define who we are. For example, more and more people are getting plastic surgery so that their bodies will reflect the beautiful, youthful person that they feel they are on the inside. Similarly, people with diseases like Guillain-Barré Syndrome or ALS are treated like they are already dead, when in fact their minds are still just as sharp as ever. Given this obsession with our body images, I love that Lisa Sandin turns the tables and declares, “I am not my body. . . . I am my words, my ideas, my actions.” Our bodies may define how we interact with our surroundings, but they should not define us.