The Body Myth is the mistaken belief that life’s meaning, our self-worth, and our worth to others are (and ought to be) based on how our body looks, what we weigh, and what we eat.

From the book:

Women have immigrated to an appearance-obsessed culture, where it is considered normal to work out our insecurities in and on our body image--how we think we look. We struggle to live up to (and make sense of) bizarre cultural norms like: “what you see is what you get,” “you are how you look,” or “you can never be too rich or too thin.” 

Let’s be clear: the body is an essential part of anyone’s identity, because we literally wouldn’t be alive without it. For millennia, humans have pondered the relationship between mind and body, flesh and spirit, psychology and physiology, or body and soul. One of the very few areas approaching consensus across the history of spiritual, philosophical, medical, psychological, and religious thought is this: the body is not the sole source of our identity and purpose.

Western tradition often conceptualizes the body as being in opposition to (and baser than) the spirit; which leads to an either/or way of seeing things. But the most enduring philosophies posit that body and spirit work in concert, influencing each other to move toward either growth or regression.

For example, Judeo-Christian tradition calls the body a “temple,” which we should keep open and clean to help our souls flourish, and thus be helpful to others. St. Francis of Assisi uses a similar metaphor in his famous prayer that asks God to “make me an instrument of Your peace.” It is helpful to think of the body metaphorically as a vessel or tool that holds, nourishes, and conveys our essence (or whatever other spiritual metaphor best helps us understand the spark of life).

The body gives us the means to think, speak, touch, feel, listen, taste, smell, and sense both ourselves and what is around us. It enables us to express our self and shape our relationships with our self and those we love. We are in the body when we reflect on life’s ongoing difficulties and joys, and when we grow in response to them.

But we are not our bodies. You are not your body. Your body is only the vehicle; it is not the journey or the destination.

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"Delve into this no-nonsense call for liberation from the Body Myth to personal freedom. You will emerge well informed and want to spread the word!"

Emme, supermodel & author of True Beauty

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