One of the consequences of living in an image-saturated society is that many of us develop a rather superficial, image-oriented relationship with our bodies. Our nearly non-stop exposure to advertisements, TV, films, the internet, and other media trains us to see, understand, and experience our bodies as “moving pictures”—that is, as images for others to view—rather than as the moving home and ground of our being. With time, many of us become more invested in what we look like than in who we are. Women in particular learn to see and experience ourselves through the eyes of others (or the lens of a camera), and we measure our beauty and goodness based on shallow facades.

It’s hard to feel comfortable in a body that is constantly self-scrutinized and perceived to be perpetually on display for others. What’s more, this preoccupation/identification with how we appear disconnects us from how our bodies feel on the inside. What if instead of focusing our energies on our external appearance, we paid more attention to our inner sensory experience? What if we shifted our attention from how our body looks on the outside to how it feels from within.

Retrieving the body’s inner wisdom requires us to tune in to our sensory experience, to pay attention to the inner life of our bodies. Instead of treating our physical desires as unruly forces that need to be tamed, we can learn to experience these desires as guides for giving us the satisfaction we seek. If we tune into our inner bodies, they will tell us what we need and how to move in ways that leave us feeling connected to ourselves and the world around us.

To practice peace with our bodies we need to learn how to relate to them as more than an image. We need to break through our fixation with how we look and delve into the deep and powerful experience of being in a physical form. By doing so, we end the cycle of female identification with appearance, create a spiritual appreciation of our physicality, and learn to enjoy what a gift our bodies can be.