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Your Body Is a Revolution: Healing Our Relationships with Our Bodies, Each Other, and the Earth
Too many of us are living disconnected from our bodies, chasing a constantly moving target of "ideal," and accepting the societal narrative about which bodies are deserving of safety and protection. In an effort to keep ourselves safe, we shame, push aside, and assimilate parts of ourselves that don't align with the cultural norm. In turn, we are disconnected from our bodies and therefore from our humanity, losing sight of the true nature of who we are and who we were born to be.
Your Body Is a Revolution is an invitation to reclaim what has been stolen from us, to embrace the wisdom our bodies long to share, and to fully inhabit our lives--perhaps for the first time. Embodiment coach Tara Teng helps us untangle ourselves from centuries of body-based oppression built into our societal systems or masquerading as religion and teaches us to slow down and listen to the wisdom that comes through somatic practices. When we embrace right relationship with our bodies, we also come into right relationship with all ourselves, each other, the earth, and our spirituality.
Book your ticket home to your body. Take back what society says is too much, too loud, too feminine, too masculine, too gay, too worldly, too unique to fit into the restrictive mold built by patriarchy, colonization, and white supremacy. Come back home to the place you were always searching for. Here, your whole self is welcome.
Your Body Is a Revolution is an invitation to reclaim what has been stolen from us, to embrace the wisdom our bodies long to share, and to fully inhabit our lives--perhaps for the first time. Embodiment coach Tara Teng helps us untangle ourselves from centuries of body-based oppression built into our societal systems or masquerading as religion and teaches us to slow down and listen to the wisdom that comes through somatic practices. When we embrace right relationship with our bodies, we also come into right relationship with all ourselves, each other, the earth, and our spirituality.
Book your ticket home to your body. Take back what society says is too much, too loud, too feminine, too masculine, too gay, too worldly, too unique to fit into the restrictive mold built by patriarchy, colonization, and white supremacy. Come back home to the place you were always searching for. Here, your whole self is welcome.
221 pages, Kindle Edition
Published May 16, 2023
20 people are currently reading
362 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
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March 2, 2024Uma leitura enriquecedora, que me fez refletir imenso sobre o meu corpo, a minha intuição e o meu privilégio.
É o primeiro livro de desenvolvimento pessoal que leio e certamente não será o último.
(Não acho que faça sentido avaliar este livro porque, a meu ver, é como se fosse um manual de ensinamentos, experiências de vida e reflexões.)
P.S.: Em breve partilho um "reading vlog" com a minha opinião no TikTok.
É o primeiro livro de desenvolvimento pessoal que leio e certamente não será o último.
(Não acho que faça sentido avaliar este livro porque, a meu ver, é como se fosse um manual de ensinamentos, experiências de vida e reflexões.)
P.S.: Em breve partilho um "reading vlog" com a minha opinião no TikTok.
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January 12, 2024Rating and review to come.
January 26, 2024
Powerful words and ideas. A must-read if you've lived through religious, emotional, sexual, and/or physical trauma or have been on the receiving end of sexism, racism, or any -ism in between.
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November 2, 2024There is a verse in the Bible that in part notes that your body is a temple. In Tara Teng's most inspiring book, the cover says it all. It notes YOUR BODY IS A REVOLUTION. It may sound abstract at first, but the more one reads into it, she basically says we take our bodies for granted. Many of us pay so little attention to their body, and rather than a vessel to be proud of, the temple becomes a worn-down ruin of sorts.
It does not take a lot of work and dedication, to make our bodies something that fills us with that pride and gives us a deeper understanding of ourselves, and the world in which we occupy. Tara Teng has given us much more than food for thought, rather she provides us with the techniques to reshape our bodies for the greater good, which will in turn gives us a deeper connection to it.
She tells us that “trauma occurs in our bodies when something happens to us that shifts our inner world in a negative way, causing us to feel trapped, neglected, alone, worthless, or disempowered.” Trauma can come over time or from one particular event. It can take many forms and manifest itself in many ways.
She adds that “once we are cognizant of how our bodies hold trauma, we can begin to unravel it.....When we feel overpowered or out of control, our nervous system sends us into fight, flight, freeze or fawn, to save us from the threat.” If we don’t heal this, we will constantly be on the defensive with any minor event even setting us off once again. But trauma needs not have that hold on us forever.
The author says we can heal and rewrite a new story in our lives. “We need to heal together, in community and in relationships." As you heal, your body heals, and any positives we experience is a victory. Small victories will turn into bigger ones. Later, Tara Teng talks about how to trust the voice within the body. Perhaps it will speak softly or with greater resonance. The author covers so many areas, and the book is one that is to be savored one chapter at a time, and worth rereading many times over.
It speaks in different ways to all people no matter who you are and what you are experiencing in life. It detracts from the sometimes insanity of the world around us, and helps us chart our own paths, with our bodies as the navigation point.
It does not take a lot of work and dedication, to make our bodies something that fills us with that pride and gives us a deeper understanding of ourselves, and the world in which we occupy. Tara Teng has given us much more than food for thought, rather she provides us with the techniques to reshape our bodies for the greater good, which will in turn gives us a deeper connection to it.
She tells us that “trauma occurs in our bodies when something happens to us that shifts our inner world in a negative way, causing us to feel trapped, neglected, alone, worthless, or disempowered.” Trauma can come over time or from one particular event. It can take many forms and manifest itself in many ways.
She adds that “once we are cognizant of how our bodies hold trauma, we can begin to unravel it.....When we feel overpowered or out of control, our nervous system sends us into fight, flight, freeze or fawn, to save us from the threat.” If we don’t heal this, we will constantly be on the defensive with any minor event even setting us off once again. But trauma needs not have that hold on us forever.
The author says we can heal and rewrite a new story in our lives. “We need to heal together, in community and in relationships." As you heal, your body heals, and any positives we experience is a victory. Small victories will turn into bigger ones. Later, Tara Teng talks about how to trust the voice within the body. Perhaps it will speak softly or with greater resonance. The author covers so many areas, and the book is one that is to be savored one chapter at a time, and worth rereading many times over.
It speaks in different ways to all people no matter who you are and what you are experiencing in life. It detracts from the sometimes insanity of the world around us, and helps us chart our own paths, with our bodies as the navigation point.
August 7, 2023
Summary: Written by an embodiment coach and somatic practitioner, this book advocates for re-connecting with our bodies and names the different ways we have been estranged from our bodies through beliefs about the body, shaming, traumatic abuses, and political oppression and how we can learn to listen to and reconnect with our bodies.
Tara Teng is an embodiment coach and somatic practitioner who helps people who for one reason or another are disconnected from their bodies to learn to lovingly come home to their bodies. She describes herself as a “bisexual, biracial Asian American cisgender woman.” Much of the book reflects her journey from the beliefs and experiences that shaped her early experiences in a purity culture-oriented evangelical church. She experienced shaming having to do with her female body and the impact of how she moved and the clothing she wore on men in her church. She grew up with a spirit-body dualism that told her that spirit was good, the body evil. For her, it was necessary to move away from these beliefs to begin a journey of healing. Yet she mentions how compelling the incarnation of Jesus is for her, not only for his own embodiedness but that he was embodied through the conception, gestation, and birth process, carried and pushed out by a woman in all the messiness and wonder of birth. Mary’s labor was indeed a holy act.
She speaks of learning to express emotion repressed in the body and to engage in embodiment meditation that expresses those emotions. She discusses the responses of the body to trauma: fight, flight, freeze, and faun, and how traumas can shape whole cultures, especially minority cultures. She engages in an analysis of the way political power oppresses the body, whether patriarchy, Jim Crow, and capitalist oppression of labor. She also discusses the journeys of disabled people to show compassion on their bodies as given rather than be subject to those who would “fix” them.
In her thinking about sexuality, she has moved to a place of gender fluidity, allowing people to embrace the gender and sexual expressions they feel most fully affirm their sense of self. She speaks in great detail about sexual dysfunctions, with an emphasis on those who are anatomically female, and how these often reflect traumas and how somatic therapies can help uncover and heal these traumas. She describes the foundation of her sexual ethic “is to do no harm and leave people better than I found them.” Her ethic is rooted in consent, doing no violence, and listening to each other’s embodied boundaries to give and receive the greatest pleasure. She invites people to reclaim their erotic selves and the goodness of their sexuality, however they would express it within the above mentioned ethical and physical boundaries.
Her concluding chapters concern learning to be an advocate for one’s embodied self, the ways she has reconstructed her spirituality around non-violent practice, and reclaiming right relationships not only with people but also the environment, her “non-human kin.”
Teng’s narrative underscores the terrible consequences of the history of Christianity’s distorted theologies of the body, including the mind-body dualism that was more Greek than Christian. She rightly intuits that in both creation and incarnation, there is a basis for the goodness of our embodiedness as well as right relationships with the rest of our physical world. There is so much in her work that I would affirm.
There are some places where I have reservations. One is that she draws upon a Marxist critique of the exploitation of capitalism on bodies. That, in itself may be warranted, but it needs to be turned on countries that have embraced Marxism in some form as well, which if anything have been far more exploitive of bodies. As much as I would join her in affirming the goodness of our sexuality and the pleasure the body affords, I would differ on matters of gender fluidity. Apart from relatively rare cases of gender ambiguity, the givenness of our bodies, our very embodied character often clashes with gender fluidity, as many feminist groups have observed. Also, working in university settings, I’m aware of how complicated the idea of “consent” can be–how fraught with contradictions it may be in many situations in which students find themselves. I’d hope we might have conversation about such things without pulling out “shaming” or “phobic” language.
The other, perhaps more substantive criticism I would make of this book as someone approaching the end of my seventh decade is the obliviousness of this book to older bodies, which are also good and may be delighted in with their wrinkles, crepe-y skin, and creaky joints. I wished and waited in vain for her to address agism and the forms of oppression imposed upon older bodies, not only in care facilities but in daily life. I would cite the difference between having physical therapy with a twenty-something versus a fifty-something who is far more acquainted with the realities as well as the potentials of older bodies. I would cite the attempts to scam me simply because of the color of my hair, the perception of my age. While we may be aware of changes, we also continue to derive great joy and pleasure in our bodies yet are also subject to forms of shaming, oppression, and abuse. This also needs to be named.
I want to acknowledge, despite my critiques, that this book made me think. I found many of the exercises helpful in listening to my body. Teng helps us discover how good our bodies are. She rightly challenges the defective theologies, practices and abuses of the church that have inflicted so much harm. Where we differed, or wnen I found myself ill at ease with an idea, she challenged me to figure out why. I read too many books that never do that so I valued this. I’m heartened with the growing interest in Christian circles on embodiment. I hope the critique and alternatives writers like Teng pose lead to a ressourcement, a return to the sources and a recovery of a far more Hebraic understanding of the body, the vision undergirding the Jewish and Christian scriptures.
________________________________
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher through LibraryThing’s Early Reviewers Program.
Tara Teng is an embodiment coach and somatic practitioner who helps people who for one reason or another are disconnected from their bodies to learn to lovingly come home to their bodies. She describes herself as a “bisexual, biracial Asian American cisgender woman.” Much of the book reflects her journey from the beliefs and experiences that shaped her early experiences in a purity culture-oriented evangelical church. She experienced shaming having to do with her female body and the impact of how she moved and the clothing she wore on men in her church. She grew up with a spirit-body dualism that told her that spirit was good, the body evil. For her, it was necessary to move away from these beliefs to begin a journey of healing. Yet she mentions how compelling the incarnation of Jesus is for her, not only for his own embodiedness but that he was embodied through the conception, gestation, and birth process, carried and pushed out by a woman in all the messiness and wonder of birth. Mary’s labor was indeed a holy act.
She speaks of learning to express emotion repressed in the body and to engage in embodiment meditation that expresses those emotions. She discusses the responses of the body to trauma: fight, flight, freeze, and faun, and how traumas can shape whole cultures, especially minority cultures. She engages in an analysis of the way political power oppresses the body, whether patriarchy, Jim Crow, and capitalist oppression of labor. She also discusses the journeys of disabled people to show compassion on their bodies as given rather than be subject to those who would “fix” them.
In her thinking about sexuality, she has moved to a place of gender fluidity, allowing people to embrace the gender and sexual expressions they feel most fully affirm their sense of self. She speaks in great detail about sexual dysfunctions, with an emphasis on those who are anatomically female, and how these often reflect traumas and how somatic therapies can help uncover and heal these traumas. She describes the foundation of her sexual ethic “is to do no harm and leave people better than I found them.” Her ethic is rooted in consent, doing no violence, and listening to each other’s embodied boundaries to give and receive the greatest pleasure. She invites people to reclaim their erotic selves and the goodness of their sexuality, however they would express it within the above mentioned ethical and physical boundaries.
Her concluding chapters concern learning to be an advocate for one’s embodied self, the ways she has reconstructed her spirituality around non-violent practice, and reclaiming right relationships not only with people but also the environment, her “non-human kin.”
Teng’s narrative underscores the terrible consequences of the history of Christianity’s distorted theologies of the body, including the mind-body dualism that was more Greek than Christian. She rightly intuits that in both creation and incarnation, there is a basis for the goodness of our embodiedness as well as right relationships with the rest of our physical world. There is so much in her work that I would affirm.
There are some places where I have reservations. One is that she draws upon a Marxist critique of the exploitation of capitalism on bodies. That, in itself may be warranted, but it needs to be turned on countries that have embraced Marxism in some form as well, which if anything have been far more exploitive of bodies. As much as I would join her in affirming the goodness of our sexuality and the pleasure the body affords, I would differ on matters of gender fluidity. Apart from relatively rare cases of gender ambiguity, the givenness of our bodies, our very embodied character often clashes with gender fluidity, as many feminist groups have observed. Also, working in university settings, I’m aware of how complicated the idea of “consent” can be–how fraught with contradictions it may be in many situations in which students find themselves. I’d hope we might have conversation about such things without pulling out “shaming” or “phobic” language.
The other, perhaps more substantive criticism I would make of this book as someone approaching the end of my seventh decade is the obliviousness of this book to older bodies, which are also good and may be delighted in with their wrinkles, crepe-y skin, and creaky joints. I wished and waited in vain for her to address agism and the forms of oppression imposed upon older bodies, not only in care facilities but in daily life. I would cite the difference between having physical therapy with a twenty-something versus a fifty-something who is far more acquainted with the realities as well as the potentials of older bodies. I would cite the attempts to scam me simply because of the color of my hair, the perception of my age. While we may be aware of changes, we also continue to derive great joy and pleasure in our bodies yet are also subject to forms of shaming, oppression, and abuse. This also needs to be named.
I want to acknowledge, despite my critiques, that this book made me think. I found many of the exercises helpful in listening to my body. Teng helps us discover how good our bodies are. She rightly challenges the defective theologies, practices and abuses of the church that have inflicted so much harm. Where we differed, or wnen I found myself ill at ease with an idea, she challenged me to figure out why. I read too many books that never do that so I valued this. I’m heartened with the growing interest in Christian circles on embodiment. I hope the critique and alternatives writers like Teng pose lead to a ressourcement, a return to the sources and a recovery of a far more Hebraic understanding of the body, the vision undergirding the Jewish and Christian scriptures.
________________________________
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher through LibraryThing’s Early Reviewers Program.
July 24, 2024
A very inspiring, thought-provoking read indeed. This year has been very transformative for me and I’ve spent a lot more time in tune with my body. I feel it was the right time to read this and be able to properly internalize it and know how it resonates with my own life.
The only part of the book I had any bit of issue with was the chapter about sexual pleasure. As an asexual person, while the author did, a couple of times, reference asexuality as possible, it seemed like an afterthought and like they didn’t truly understand it. It is common for my identity in that respect to be reduced to “trauma” or “not having found the right person”, but I’m very sick of having to explain myself to people who view sex as the end-all be-all. I don’t think the author intended harm but I do wish they understood asexuality a bit better before writing some of the rhetoric they shared in that chapter.
The only part of the book I had any bit of issue with was the chapter about sexual pleasure. As an asexual person, while the author did, a couple of times, reference asexuality as possible, it seemed like an afterthought and like they didn’t truly understand it. It is common for my identity in that respect to be reduced to “trauma” or “not having found the right person”, but I’m very sick of having to explain myself to people who view sex as the end-all be-all. I don’t think the author intended harm but I do wish they understood asexuality a bit better before writing some of the rhetoric they shared in that chapter.
July 2, 2023
I liked that the author has a Christian background and was clearly immersed in the culture, unlike some people who only vaguely believe in God and couldn't quite relate to my own experience with Christianity. I also liked her alternate take on sex workers compared to the usual progressive stance that "sex work is work"--which comes from a well-meaning place (i.e., stop shaming prostitutes) but reduces the whole existence of sex work as a matter of "choice" instead of a product of a patriarchal society that should be be discussed in a more nuanced way.
This book should be read by any woman who was raised to be a good Christian girl and just didn't have the temperament to rebel and question everything.
This book should be read by any woman who was raised to be a good Christian girl and just didn't have the temperament to rebel and question everything.
April 27, 2024
Wow! Easy five stars! The brilliant Tara Teng has written a beautiful, gentle invitation for all of us to engage with our bodies - such a huge part of who we are - in a new, loving, accepting way that most of us have never known how to do until now.
I truly only wish I read this earlier. My teenage, and young adult selves needed this book too! But wow am I happy I’m reading it now and not waiting any longer.
This book is a safe read for individuals of any gender, sexual orientation, race, trauma, or belief system. It will meet you exactly where you are at and nurture you into a better relationship with yourself.
It would also make a wonderful gift for anyone with a body who loves to read and feel good.
I truly only wish I read this earlier. My teenage, and young adult selves needed this book too! But wow am I happy I’m reading it now and not waiting any longer.
This book is a safe read for individuals of any gender, sexual orientation, race, trauma, or belief system. It will meet you exactly where you are at and nurture you into a better relationship with yourself.
It would also make a wonderful gift for anyone with a body who loves to read and feel good.
August 15, 2023
This book is essential for anyone trying to live a life founded in Love… love of self, love of fellow humans, love of the earth, love of all of creation. The world structures have not been designed around living in loving community with all of creation, but as Tara breaks down those constructs she gives us new understanding of what Justice can look like in all its forms. She teaches us that there is a way to see every life as valuable, meaningful and worthy of loving fulfillment, and it all begins with embracing our own bodies.
August 17, 2024
Easily one of my top 10 books! It is a life-changing read, especially if you grew up in a high control religion where your own body is demonized. Tara’s perspective and wisdom are clearly articulated and her writing style is so genuine and relatable. It feels like she is sitting in your living room with you, chatting about these incredible topics over a cup of tea.
This book opened my eyes to a whole new way of living and relating to my body, my community and the world. I sincerely can’t recommend this book enough!
This book opened my eyes to a whole new way of living and relating to my body, my community and the world. I sincerely can’t recommend this book enough!
May 2, 2023
Tara embodies the healing that she teaches. She communicates that embodied compassionate healing so well in this book. The title itself blows me away - my body is me, and fully living into a supportive relationship with my body is revolutionary and has power not just for me, but for transforming my relationships with others and the earth. I am so grateful for Tara's voice and presence of wisdom. It is much needed personally, and in the world.
January 11, 2024
A really great intro into embodiment work and deconstructing all the cultural garbage that we get about how to feel about our bodies. Teng then connects embodiment work with greater consciousness building, advocacy, and revolutionary community building. Learn how to trust yourself, learn how to trust others, and
build systems of reciprocity. Similar to adrianne marie brown, Emergent Strategy and Pleasure Activism.
build systems of reciprocity. Similar to adrianne marie brown, Emergent Strategy and Pleasure Activism.
January 9, 2024
Wow, this was an impactful read from cover to cover. The author motivates us to rethink our relationship with our bodies and the complicated social structures we operate within. While heavily rooted in a socialogical lens, this book pushes you to think, feel, and find a way forward (rather than presenting a immediate solution). Highly recommend!
February 25, 2025
I liked the way that she touched upon the body in many (most) systems, although a lot of the book felt redundant. The journal prompts and invitations were very cute tho, I can’t say I didn’t try some of those out. The last chapter was definitely very beautifully written (lowkey makes me wanna book a session with her but anyways)
August 20, 2023
A beautifully non judgemental, affirming, safe written book on deconstruction and finding your personal spirituality and sexuality. This book is for everyone..Christian’s, non Christian’s, atheists and ally’s and everyone in between.
September 12, 2023
This book is beautifully healing. If you are on a journey to embodiment after growing up in high control religion, or really anyone who wishes to come back to their full self, this is for you. Gentle and practical ways to navigate this journey.
December 14, 2023
An absolutely beautiful book. With “embodiment” being a chosen theme of mine for 2024, this book was such a great way to live into that focus. I highly recommend this book to anyone who has felt the slightest bit disembodied by the forces that govern the oppressive systems in which we all live.
July 11, 2023
great place to start for the intersection between intersectional healing justice, decolonization, and faith deconstruction
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September 15, 2023great aspirations in title…good relationship with one’s own body, others and the earth!!! good reflections on all above were inspired by this book.
October 14, 2023
A really lovely intro to embodiment. Love Tara’s voice and perspective.
January 18, 2024
Tara has written a really accessible and warm guide for returning to your body that makes room for disability and the Land. Highly recommend.
January 18, 2024
Tara is so knowledgeable about bodies and this book really shows that. Such an important and good read!
January 18, 2024
This book prompted deep thought, introspection and healing. Tara perfectly encapsulates the experience of going from evangelical abstinence-based education around bodies, sex, and so much more, and helps break down the pieces, guiding the reader to reflect and heal bit by bit. This is not a one time read, but rather a book to be returned to again and again. This book should be contemplated, with chapters taken as you need them. It should be reread and allow you to discover something different about yourself and your beliefs each time. I adored this book and devoured in my first read, and have since gifted and quoted it to several people. A must read.
Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews