BodyLogos Blog

Own Your Beauty

Photographer: Charlie Chessler

Most people I know question their beauty and judge their body.

So they hide it with baggy clothes, beat it with fitness, or starve it with diets. But, even if you change your body’s appearance to what you deem preferable, the only thing that can change your relationship with it is trust.

Trusting that your body is an expression of beautiful.
Trusting that your beauty is an expression of love.

Trust goes beyond looking beautiful, to being beauty.

Your body is a bridge. It brings face-to-face what the mind deems important and where Spirit wants to take you.

I was recently asked to participate in a Body Positive photo expose’. It was explained that all the women involved would pose nude, and write an essay to accompany the photo about their relationship with their body and the project.

I accepted.

Women from different cultures, ages and sizes were asked to sit in the same position for the photo. Nineteen women had gone before me, so I was able to see the ensemble of photos chosen before taking my clothes off.

They were all so different. Beautiful in unique ways. They adorned themselves with tattoos, hair-styles, make-up, hats, jewellery and nothingness. I enjoyed the creativity and sensuality we all shared.

Most of all, the grace in our willingness to be wholly seen took my breath away.

I was about to join these women in a trust.

A trust that physical beauty is something we each have.
A trust that beauty has the wisdom of diversity.

And, what I learned was, beauty needs our permission to be experienced and shared.

Without giving beauty permission to exist, it stays trapped inside the body unable to shine. And our expectations and uncertainties overcast the body’s wisdom causing us to fear ourselves.

But when you trust you are beautiful, an inherent wisdom outshines your fear of being you.

Before this photo shoot I was terrified of a camera lens. Would it see me as ugly, afraid or lacking? I was afraid to really see me.

But something about the willingness to be seen wholly, mixed with the integrity of the shoot, I felt relaxed in my imperfections. I felt free!

Suddenly I was more curious than judgmental. The lens was a place I could learn about myself and everything I could-be.

Everything I thought I should-be, by comparison, seemed unimportant.

Is your relationship with your body based in judgments or love?

This photo shoot was an extension of my work. A place where mind body alignment dissolves the judgments that shadow love.

To be curious about what judgments cause you to not trust yourself, keep talking to your body’s pain and discomfort, adjust your stance, and breath a new alignment into being, until all that remains is a recognition of the beauty that is you.

Please comment with how you experience beauty or this story.

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Redefining Strength

I want to change our perception of strength. Strength is the ability to meet resistance and influence an outcome without compromising ourselves. And we already have it.

Strength is not an attribute; it’s a state of being. Gladiators, bodybuilders, and football players demonstrate strength through brute force, sheer willpower, muscle mass, and relentless pursuit. But we’re also quick to identify dancers and martial artists as strong. Their medium taps into a sense of vulnerability, balance, alignment, controlled power, and grace—but no one can deny their strength. Strength may look different on each of us, but it is an inherent part of who we are.

You are not weak by nature; you are stronger than you think. Your strength is not something you need to kill yourself to gain—it is already within you, waiting to be excavated. The key is to stop chasing something you already have and tap into it, so you can manifest that strength in your everyday life.

Because we don’t think we’re strong, we approach resistance with the idea that we’re not enough. We throw everything we have at it and push past our physical, mental, and emotional limitations. We see strength as domination, but it’s not.

When you learn to listen to your body’s divine wisdom, you cultivate a sense of where your body is developing tension instead of standing in its strength. You end the vicious cycle of unrealistic expectations, injury, and self-criticism and learn how to consciously embrace responsible growth. You stop compartmentalizing your strength into emotional, physical, and mental pieces and operate from the strength of your being at all times.

You learn how to align yourself with gravity—instead of working against it—so you can channel your strength to meet life’s resistance. As you meet resistance with equal parts power and alignment, you transform tension into strength

As in the sword dance above, the power lies in bringing just the right amount of force—not too little and not too much. By meeting the sword’s weight, I meet gravity. I am tapped into a larger source of energy, free of tension, and discover a strength that is wholly and uniquely mine.

About Tammy Wise

Tammy Wise is a widely respected mind-body fitness expert based out of New York City, owner of BodyLogos, Inc. author of The Art of Strength: Sculpt the Body ~ Train the Mind. A former Broadway dancer turned Tao minister, Tammy was voted the Best of Fitness by Time Out New York and has appeared in Martha Stewart’s Whole Living magazine, New York Magazine, Natural Health, Shape, and Thrive Global. She’s a Transformational Authors Contest Winner and regular contributor to Honeysuckle magazine and Medium. Visit her at bodylogos.com.