ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses the distress of “achieving” a specific body before accepting it as worthy of respect. The author describes how attempts to achieve adequacy through eating disorder behaviors and compulsive movement materialized only as injuries and further dissatisfaction in her own past. Against this backdrop, the chapter discusses the harms of viewing physical bodies as something to be “sculpted” into an achievement and how to instead “let it be.”
This chapter’s activity instructs the reader to write a letter to their physical body in which they extend grace, acceptance, and respect for all of the body’s functions and acknowledge the body’s inherent value.
