"Your body is a temple." "You should treat your body like a temple." These are familiar old sayings I remember hearing occasionally when I was young. I understand the idea—to treat your body as sacred and holy. No one in my immediate family was a living example of this, so I can't remember ever taking this platitude very seriously. Come to fine out it was thoroughly ingrained, however, who knew!
In fact, I distanced myself from all things religious pretty much as soon as I was emancipated. This distance applied to anything and everything related to Catholicism or any religion in general and extended to places of worship too, now that I think of it. I was in a church for the very first time in decades on my trip to Iceland and Ireland. (The building in my images is the Evangelical-Lutheran church Hallgrimskirkja in the center of Reykjavík.) During a recent BYOB (Be Your Own Bestie) meditation, the image of a temple—very similar to the one I saw in Reykjavik—appeared with a big X over it, clear as a bell. Funny how resistance, guilt, and who knows how many other tangled associations with religion and religious spaces had somehow bled over into my own caring concern for my body. The message landed instantly: my body is not a temple. Another shortsighted, misunderstood, and overused dictum bites the dust! And honestly, it feels a little blasphemous to say that out loud—maybe even to think it. After all, doesn't rejecting the temple analogy sound like rejecting reverence, rejecting care, rejecting something sacred? Aren’t we supposed to treat our bodies with the same devotion, the same meticulous attention that a temple commands? But that’s exactly where the disconnect is. The problem isn’t reverence—it’s the rigid, artificial holiness imposed on something that is anything but rigid or artificial. My body is not a stone monument built for worship. It is not a pristine sanctuary meant to be tiptoed around in hushed voices and dim lighting. It is flesh and breath, hunger and movement, sweat and sensation. It is messy and alive and human. Saying it—my body is not a temple—feels like shaking off a weight I didn’t even realize I was carrying. It feels like unlearning years of silent programming, the quiet undercurrent of shame and expectation woven into every platitude about purity, restraint, and self-denial. It feels like heresy, and yet, at the same time, it feels like freedom. For the record, I have zero issues with God, the Universe, or whatever name fits. My fundamental mistrust is reserved for the copious, controlling, proselytizing humans who are convinced I need saving—on their terms. And right now, the only salvation I’m interested in is from their small, suffocating definitions of what me and my body is supposed to be. It struck me how deeply this resistance had embedded itself. Had I, without realizing it, absorbed the belief that caring for my body carried an invisible weight of guilt? That if I wasn’t treating it a certain way, I was somehow sinful? The guilt of religious obligation had shape-shifted into a quiet, nagging, "should-spouting" voice about my health, my choices, my physical self. No wonder the image of the temple with an X appeared—my subconscious had been waiting for permission to reject the comparison outright. I felt like shouting it at the top of my lungs—"My body is not a temple, damnit!" And when I let go of that idea, something unexpected happened. A space opened—something bigger, truer, and far more alive than the cold stone of a temple could ever hold. If my body is not a temple, then what is it? It is my home, a cozy place I have never left, never been abandoned by. It is a garden, constantly growing, adapting, renewing itself. It is a playground, meant for movement, sensation, and joy. It is an ocean, vast, powerful, untamed. My body is a mountain, mysterious, magical, raw and unpredictable. A story, unfolding moment by moment, telling the truth of my life in scars, laughter lines, aches, and exhilaration. I had never considered my body this way before. I had spent so much time unknowingly resisting an idea that never fit me that I had never fully stepped into what was possible instead. Letting go of the temple created a massive opening, a shift so profound it brought tears to my eyes. For the first time, I saw my body not as something fragile to tiptoe around, not as something to fix, measure up, or maintain—but as something to live in, to love, to be with. I have come to know my own body as nothing short of miraculous in all its workings and abilities and functions. And I don’t have to go anywhere or construct anything or consult anyone to witness this miracle. My body is a mystery beyond explanation, even if you gathered every doctor, yogi, and mystic from the beginning of time until now. So no, my body is not a temple. It is not built just for worship, for quiet reverence, for rules and rituals. My body is my home, my playground, my garden, my instrument, my ocean, my mountain, my story. Stand by for articles exploring with enthusiasm and curiosity each of these metaphors. I do know now that my body does not need holiness—it needs love, attention, movement, and trust. And that is more sacred than any temple ever built.
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