Advertisement

Lifestyle Love Your Body

Vivia Kieswetter: lay minister

My relationship with my body has had twists and turns. I have a chronic pain condition. Most of the time, I’m invisibly disabled, but I carry a cane when I’m particularly wobbly. I’ve had migraines and seizures since I was a child and I was only diagnosed with arthritis seven years ago. I got a lot of “It’s all in your head.” Women with chronic pain are often treated that way.

I thought I could muscle my way out of pain, so I worked out between three and four hours a day. I tracked everything I ate and went to the gym and calculated that I burned exactly that many calories. I did that for five or six years. I felt crazy. I would look in the mirror and any tiny little flaw was all I could see. I tied up a lot of my self-worth in that instead of thinking of myself as a divine creature that deserves pleasure in the midst of all this pain.

My diagnosis was a big part of breaking that cycle. In 2010, I had a complex migraine, which mimics the symptoms of a stroke. I went to the emergency room and saw everybody around me panicking. I sat there very calmly thinking I was dying. After that experience, I realized my conditions were real. I use the phrase “mind over matter” and I realized that the matter mattered.

So I went out and got my first tattoo. It was a skull with wings, which is an old Christian symbol for immortal life and mortality, and in Latin it says “Remember this body is mortal.” It was a reminder that I’m just flesh. 

I got it on the fleshy part of my inner right arm because I was constantly getting blood work and I wanted it to be there when they were putting needles in my arm. When they took blood, I wanted a reminder that I was okay. But it was also a reminder of the sense of urgency to love myself and to love others. 

I couldn’t stop at one. I’m now pretty much covered. I was always a rock ’n’ roll child at heart but I presented as a “good girl.” I decided to let the exterior match the interior a lot more.

Every day I wake up in a different body. My energy and pain levels are different. My level of physicality is different. Having the diagnosis is validating but it’s still difficult to not be ableist toward myself – to not think of my disability as weakness or laziness. 

I work at a church at Avenue and Dupont where I run an outreach café that is a not-for-profit space. I hope people will let go of the notion that all people who do Christian ministry are prudish. God made me this way. I used to fight the idea that my body was aging – a lot – and I feel pretty bangin’ at 46 in a way that I didn’t feel, even though my body may have been more conventionally attractive, at 26. I critiqued it all the time instead of loving its juiciness in the way that I do now.


More

See last year’s Body Issue here.

Advertisement

Exclusive content and events straight to your inbox

Subscribe to our Newsletter

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

By signing up, I agree to receive emails from Now Toronto and to the Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions.