acknowledging your body as a home for love — mariah hicks
*intention is the birthplace for manifestation. it is the altar for speaking, believing and sowing seeds that will carry into fruition. it is the blueprint for fulfillment. here, in this moment, i offer my body intention as i extend love, praise, + healing to even the darkest trenches through which she has crawled. for without purpose, there is no foundation. there are no bones for the flesh to become.
when i think about being intentional with my body, i think about preparing it as a space that can be a home. a home for myself. a home for my future children. a home for love, joy and peace. i think about my body being a temple, and when i say temple, i don’t mean a place where i must come clean and free of sin. i don’t mean a place where i am required to remove my shoes once i step foot in the door. i mean a place where i can come messy and broken and yet still feel beautiful and deserving and glorious.
but for years, i existed in a body that was not a home. every morning was robbed of sunlight. every dusk placed me in the arms of darkness. i existed in those evenings so much, i became accustomed to days without the sun. negative became my way of thinking, believing, doing, being.
i could not understand myself and did not feel deserving of glory. i felt guilty at any attempt to love myself, guilty for asking for love in the way which i required it and guilty for requiring so much. but my body had suffered trauma, and after years spent in midnight blues, i now realize that much love is a requirement for my continual healing. and this is love that i am deserving of, over and over again.
i was never handed the ingredients for navigating my body after trauma. i was only spoon fed bitter recipes that were passed down generation after generation, recipes that encouraged me to hold my silence and furthermore, neglect my trauma. i internalized my pain and never truly figured out how to release it in a healthy manner. my body held onto that trauma, and even when i began the journey of mental and emotional reconciliation, my body still responded as if the war had not been won. as if she was fighting with every fiber of her being to survive, to rise and claim the joy that was so rightfully hers.
i forgot to praise my body. i forgot to offer it a sweet hallelujah, tell it that even though it experienced trauma, it was still glory. but, i had to make my way back home. i had to hum the gracious hymns until my voice became strong enough to sing again. i had to unlearn every negative lie i told myself, untangle the webs of detrimental mindsets that kept me a prisoner within my own bones. i had to rewire my system, relearn love in the midst of being love, receiving love, and giving love. i had to reintroduce myself to my body as home.
i know that i require much, but every day i strive to love the much that i require and have learned that i should never settle for people or things who can’t strive to love the much that i require as well. i know that my body is a book full of different chapters and with every day that i exist, i must engage with its pages and fall in love with its story. i have learned that i should not settle for people or spaces who only want the sweet honeysuckles of my testimony, but never offer the time to fall in love with my thorns as well.
acknowledging my body as a home for love allowed me to store my overall happiness + joy within myself, and that gave me permission to allow people and things to be an income to the happiness + joy which i already encompass. on this journey of being intentional with my body, my home, i am diving deeper into my blessings. i am existing in this space fully in a way which allows me to be love, receive love, and offer love.
i know that i can never be too much woman or hold too much trauma that marks me undeserving of the wholeness of love. i know that the duality between my darkness and my light is special, that both my evenings and my mornings make me who i am. and that is a beautiful, glorious, and wondrous woman.
so wherever you are, in the wake of morning or in midnight hour, acknowledge your body as a home for love. for peace. for joy. and offer up songs of praise in honor of it, in honor of you.
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BY MARIAH HICKS
(SHE/HER)
social:
@mariahhhh_j
wordsbyri
mariah hicks is a passionate + dedicated creative who, through her work, strives to cultivate beautiful portrayals of the black community and the spaces in which they exist. her work is solely focused on navigating the narrative of the black woman while seaming together her own existence as a black female. mariah is a photographer, writer, and author of poetry book "to wilt and bloom," which is available on amazon. she also works on the editorial team for the body: a home for love. in her free time, you can catch her swinging in her hammock under a soft breeze writing poetry, taking self-portraits, or enjoying the little moments with those that she loves.