Mother-Daughter Body Gratitude Ritual

Break the generational cycle of body shame and body dissatisfaction, and enjoy special intimate time with your daughter.

This is a beautiful way to start the day or to seed your dreams before bed.

Ideally, meet in the same spot at about the same time each day. 

Here's the Mother-Daughter Body Gratitude Ritual.  Adapt freely!

• Light a candle.  Pour water into a small bowl.
• Breathe deeply together three times, to invite presence with and reverence for your body, mind and spirit.
• Say together, “I am perfect and whole just as I am” (or choose another affirmation).
• Take turns describing something that you love about your body or are grateful to your body. It can be something your body does - dance, soccer, swim, bike, paint. Or just anything – your cute belly button or a new tooth coming in.
• Put your palms together over your hearts. Say Namaste to each other.  Bow.  Smile into each other's eyes.
• Extinguish the candle.  
• Offer the water to a plant or to Mother Earth.

The water and the candle's fire evoke the natural world and speak to the Divine Feminine and Sacred Masculine within each of us. You could substitute or add seasonal items - reminders of our cyclical nature - such as a summer flower, an autumn leaf, a crystal for winter, an egg or sprouting grass seeds in spring.

Here are some examples of speaking body-love and body-gratitude shared by my students:

• “I love how my lungs breathed in so much air as I walked up the hill  today. I felt powerful."
• “I’m grateful for my strong legs because they pump me high on the swing.  Wheeee!”
• "Thank you, dear hands, for making this lovely bracelet today."
• "I'm proud that my tummy's plumper.  I look more like you."
• "I love wiggling my toes. I can make my little toe wiggle all by itself!"
• "I'm grateful for my womb which each month gathers and releases the sacred blood of life.  And which was your first earthly home."
• "I appreciate that my tongue tasted so much yummy food today.  And thanks to you too, teeth, for chewing it up."
• "Thank you, breast buds, for starting to grow. I hope you don't hurt too much!"

You can simplify this ritual as much as you wish.  It will not lose its power.

Please know that this is incredibly impactful.  We are refusing allow the over-culture to dictate our feelings and beliefs about our bodies. We are embracing, loving and celebrating our bodies. We are mothering our daughters - and ourselves! - in a way that will heal the wounds of many generations, and leave us feeling alive and holy, as we are meant to. 

I predict that your daughter will begin thanking you for this in her late teens or early twenties, and will rekindle this ritual with her own daughter.

You can start today. Please come back and leave a comment telling us how it goes.

Much love and many blessings, 

Katharine Krueger

Art by Tamara Adams

Photo by Silver RavenWolf

Sisters!

Night Sky Riders is my new Women Who Run with the Wolves Online Study Group for women, launching September 9.

Sign up here

Also, it's a bit of a secret that the next

Mentoring Girls Certificate Training

is open for enrollment
at the Super Early Bird Rate.
You can get started right away, and so far the group is really small because I haven't done much outreach yet.  

Click here to learn more and snag the Super Early Bird Rate.