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Dear Cervix

October 23, 2020 by Nicole Ayers

I’ve been giving you side eye for more than a decade now. You’re an integral part of me, but I haven’t wanted much to do with you. Yet I find myself oddly grateful for you during this time of self-isolation.

Once before, because of you, I was forced to stay home for months. With the hindsight that’s only ever available years later, I know I needed to slow down, to learn how to wait, to find a different path.

I’ve been giving you side eye for more than a decade now. You’re an integral part of me, but I haven’t wanted much to do with you. Yet I find myself oddly grateful for you during this time of self-isolation. Once before, because of you, I was forced to stay home for months. With the hindsight that’s only ever available years later, I know I needed to slow down, to learn how to wait, to find a different path.

During my first pregnancy, when you began to open much too early, for no discernible reason, I felt like you failed me. Dashed were my dreams of how my pregnancy would go. Instead of bebopping around with my growing belly on full display, I got thirteen weeks of bedrest. Ninety-one days of feeling lost in my very own Bermuda triangle as I moseyed from my bed to the bathroom to the doctor’s office and back to bed.

The one exciting outing I was allowed—to my sister-in-law’s wedding—ended early with a trip to the drug store to purchase suppositories because my horrendous constipation was causing my belly to cramp and contract. Nothing went according to the plans I had carefully arranged this stage of my life around.

I relinquished so much in that mysterious waiting zone: my idyllic dreams, the pregnancy orgasms, a pain-free back, my identity as a distinct entity, separate from my baby, and eventually my teaching career.

As the days of this Covid-19 lockdown pile up, I’m experiencing déjà vu. Memories of bedrest crowd my mind.

The first few days felt like a vacation in Shocksville. I couldn’t quite comprehend the looming danger or face the particular what-ifs, and it felt pretty nice to sleep in and relax and get special attention.

The following few days were harder. All the plans I’d been making to keep my life “just so” were cancelled. I couldn’t wash my own underwear, much less decorate a nursery. There was no longer plenty of time to make long-term sub plans for my classroom babies. New disappointments arose every day as I realized more things I was missing while I hung out at home: a bachelorette trip, a baby shower, the freedom to go anywhere I wanted, whenever I wanted.

But I tried to hold it together because I was okay. There was no good reason to cry. Other people were looking to me to know how to respond to this crisis, and by golly, I could be the strong one. Even if every moment felt like a slog.

Finally, the breakdown came.

And then the surrender.

Repeat.

I learned how to exist in this new space without making too many plans. To let go of the hustle that had guided my every move for too many years to count. To unhitch from the identity I’d carved out of my profession and to get to curious about who I might be if my world was different.

That curiosity led me to pivot just a couple of short years later from a teacher to a stay-at-home mom, to an editor running my own business, to a published author.

The early days of the Covid-19 pandemic have very much mimicked my bedrest experience: the shock and incomprehension of my new circumstances, but gratitude for a break from the grind; then my futile attempt to power my way through the disappointment of all my book events being cancelled; the snotty heart-broken wails as I lay on my closet floor and grieved my loss.

I’m somewhere between the breakdown and the surrender. In that intense crucible of the waiting room—the place where what I’d planned transmutes into what the divine has planned for me.

I am so grateful to you, Cervix, for that enforced rest twelve years ago because, now that I’m so far on the other side of it, I can clearly see its purpose. There were so many gifts waiting for me that I could never have imagined if I’d stayed that version of me.

The enforced waiting room of Covid-19 is different, of course. The intensity of the waiting is amplified because the whole world is in this space. For far too many, there is loss that feels like too much to hold. Illness that takes people to the brink of death, and maybe beyond. Loss of loved ones. The shuttering of a business that was someone’s life’s work. And for many others, the fear of experiencing similar tragedies is just as hard, especially when circumstances dictate that they can’t stay home to protect themselves because they’re a healthcare worker, or the woman who can’t feed herself, or her family, if she doesn’t show up to her job.

My own lockdown is fairly comfortable. Lockdown is such a dramatic word. I’m not an inmate. I’m snugged up in my pj’s, in my safe and comfy home, trying to keep the balls in the air: the work, the caretaking, the feeding and watering of the plants, animals, and children. Sneaking in moments of breathing and meditation and Wild Soul Movement. Too much screen time. Not enough sweets. Too much booze. Not enough activity. But overall, everything that I need to ride out this pandemic in comfort.

I am so, so grateful for that, and I also recognize how many of my privileges have afforded me this level of safety. I’m also grateful to you. Thank you, Cervix, for opening too early. Had I not been placed on bedrest, I wouldn’t have the experience to lean into that reminds me I can wait. I can trust. I can just “be” in this very terrible moment.

I don’t know yet what is coming after Covid-19, or how the world and her people will be changed for good or bad or both. Or how I will be changed for good or bad or both. But once before, I have been forced into my home, made to sit still, and wait, all the while, hoping and praying for the best. So that’s what I’ll do now. Sit still and wait, all the while, hoping and praying for the best.

A closing to the letter that says: Love, Me

Artwork by Mica Gadhia

Note: This essay was first published in April 2020, a few weeks into the global COVID-19 pandemic.

Filed Under: Essays Tagged With: bedrest, covid19, dear cervix, love notes to my body, self-acceptance, self-love

The Nastygram Narrative

October 14, 2020 by Nicole Ayers

I used to say the meanest, cruelest things to myself. I still do, but now I catch myself and try something different. In this video, I share about the last time I injured my knees and how I managed to shut up that mean voice in my head.

Filed Under: Love Note Videos Tagged With: body acceptance, body positivity, dear knees, love notes to my body, nastygram narrative, self-care, self-love, self-talk

Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus

October 8, 2020 by Nicole Ayers

by Dusti Bowling

Summary: “Whoa! What happened to your arms?”

Aven Green gets that question a lot. She loves to tell people that she lost her arms in an alligator wrestling match, or a wildfire in Tanzania, but the truth is she was born without them. And when her parents take a job running Stagecoach Pass, a rundown western theme park in Arizona, Aven moves with them across the country knowing that she’ll have to answer the question over and over again.

book cover of Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus by Dusti Bolwing. It is a drawing of a desert scene with cacti.

Aven is a fantastic character who reminded me that people with different abilities don’t need or want my pity. Aven’s parents have always pushed her to figure things out, and she’s one of the most capable heroines I’ve ever met (in the book, of course; although, I’d love to hang out with Aven in real life).

Aven may not have arms, but she doesn’t need them to hold the reader captive with her wit, tenacity, and intelligence. She can teach us all lessons in self-love and self-acceptance.

Filed Under: Body-Positive Media Tagged With: aven green, dusti bowling, insignificat events in the life of a cactus, no arms, self-acceptance, self-love

Will You Share Your Love Note?

October 1, 2020 by Nicole Ayers

a white envelope with a pink heart to seal it on an orange-yellow background
Artwork by Mica Gadhia

Dear Friends,

Writing love notes to my body transformed my life. I love sharing my love notes and hearing about the ways they inspire you or challenge you.

I also really love reading love notes that other women write to their bodies. They fill up my own creative well and validate how powerful this practice can be.

With that in mind, I want to invite you to share your love notes with our community. I don’t want this platform to just be about me and my body. I want it to be about all of us, all of our journeys to accept our bodies.

Your love notes can be anonymous. They can be signed. Your loves notes can be doodles or drawings and not notes at all. They can be whatever you want them to be.

Will you join me in sharing a glimpse into your experience with your body?

Email me with your offering, and I’ll share it in a future blog post. Be sure to let me know if you want credit or if you’d prefer anonymity.

Fingers crossed that you’ll say yes!

Love,

Nicole

Filed Under: Your Love Notes Tagged With: dear friends, invitation, love notes, love notes to my body, love notes to your body

Sonya Renee Taylor

September 25, 2020 by Nicole Ayers

Sonya Renee Taylor is a pioneer in showing us how to love ourselves. She has created The Body Is Not an Apology organization as a beacon with the tagline “Radical Self-Love for Everybody and Every Body.”

There are so many powerful resources to guide us, including books and e-courses about radical self-love.

Just look at the cover of The Body Is Not an Apology: The Power of Radical Self-Love! It fills me with joy to see such radical self-love.

I am forever grateful to you, @sonyareneetaylor, for sharing your work with the world and showing us, by example, that there’s another way to be in relationship with our bodies.

  • Book cover of The Body Is Not an Apology  has a purple background. The author, Sonya Renee Taylor, lays on a bed of flowers. She is nude but covered with flowers.
A rectangular logo for the Ten Tools for Radical Self-Love E-course by Sonya Renee Taylor.

Filed Under: Wise Women to Follow Tagged With: body, celebrate your body, radical self-love, self-love, sonya renee taylor, ten tools for radical self-love, the body is not an apology

Dear Bladder,

September 17, 2020 by Nicole Ayers

I am making a commitment to you that I will pee just as soon as I feel your first tingle. I will no longer ask you to wait until you’re uncomfortable. There is no need to create stress for you and my pelvic-floor muscles.

I realize that emptying you is a simple way I can love on myself. It’s also such good practice for me to pay more attention to Body’s subtle communication. I don’t want to make you scream for my attention.

I’m sorry for all those years that I held you past good reason. Taking a break to relieve you while teaching always felt tricky. Leaving a class of kiddos unsupervised is never a good idea, but why didn’t I ask my teacher neighbors to keep an eye on them more often? Here’s another way I hurt myself because I’ve struggled to ask for help.  

Making you wait for hours sounds so silly, especially because I preached at my daughters, when they were potty training (and after), to go as soon as you nudged them. So here’s my promise to you: I will pee just as soon as you tell me too. Even if it’s inconvenient, like on a road trip or in the grocery store. You’re worth it!

Artwork by Mica Gadhia

Filed Under: Love Notes to My Body Tagged With: dear bladder, love notes to my body, self-care, self-love

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