What’s your relationship with your body? You might not think about it at all. It may feel like your enemy, or like singer-songwriter Tessa Violet, your body might be your buddy.
Tessa has been working on “a record of music for healing thoughts,” and while this project is largely about cultivating music that Tessa can sing to herself as she builds her mental health toolbox, one of the songs has struck a major chord with her listeners. The song “My Body’s My Buddy” is an ode to the lifelong relationship we each have with our bodies.
If you’re a longtime fan of Tessa, then you know she has a special knack for looking at the world from new angles. These reinterpretations of words and experiences come out in conversation, but they also inspire music. “My Body’s My Buddy” came out of Tessa’s own spin on a bachelorette party. Instead of clubbing, dancing, or even a destination vacation, Tessa asked her friend, singer-songwriter and wellness coach Julia Nunes, to host a wellness retreat for her and her closest friends, at this retreat, the group participated in an eye-opening exercise that asked each of them to write letters to and from their bodies.
The exercise goes like this: You write a letter from your body to you, then take a 10-minute break. After the break, you respond to the letter from your body. Take another break and repeat the process one more time.
She shared a portion of her final letter to her body with us.
“Dear body,
I marvel at your beauty. I love being in love with you. I love your toes. I love your ankles. I love your knees. I love your hips. I love your shoulders, elbows, and wrists. I love your fat. I love your muscle. I want to write a book about how much I love you. I get high off you. You are my buddy.
Love,
Tessa”
Tessa realized her body has a personality she hadn’t considered and that they have a relationship she hadn’t explored. “The thing that came up for me is that I was like, ‘Oh, my body is like very silly actually. [It’s] funny and very gentle and very loving and wants me to know that it is my friend. I’m like ‘Wow, my body is my friend.'” This was the beginning of a conversation Tessa keeps returning to, and she was inspired by her friends’ letters as well. One friend, who gave Tessa permission to share from their letter, wrote to their body, “My body, I’m coming to find you,” a comment on their experience as a non-binary person that Tessa would eventually incorporate into “My Body’s My Buddy.”
Once the song started to take shape, she knew she wanted to bring it to life with indie-pop singer-songwriter Brye. Brye had already written more than one song about her relationship with my body, but she was excited about Tessa’s concept. When Tessa asked her, Brye said to her, “I am never tired of writing songs about my body.” From there, the song was born.
“My Body’s My Buddy” has quickly become a conversation and body positivity anthem since its release in August 2024, but Tessa knows this conversation is not one-size-fits-all. The song is a powerful comment on how inseparable we are from our bodies. Looking at it this way, body positivity is a great way to interact with ourselves, but Tessa also knows that for someone who has fallen into habits of body negativity, “body neutrality” might be closer to what we’re striving for. “If someone said, ‘I want to be more body positive,’ I would say, ‘Slay queen. You can have it! It’s about practicing,” she elaborated. “But if someone said to me, ‘I hate my body, and I’d like to change that. What would you recommend?’ I would not suggest body positivity. I’d say let’s start with body neutrality. Your body is the vessel through which you experience this one beautiful and, I believe, sacred life. Let’s just start there.”
Listening to Tessa and Brye sing “My Body’s My Buddy” brings chills and even tears. As the song grew in popularity, they received requests to open the conversation even further. “…When we put it out, I got a lot of comments from people asking for a gender-neutral [version],” Tessa shared. “And that just seemed like an easy thing Brye and I could do and give away to people who wanted it…” The new version features non-binary bedroom pop artist Corook, whose voice lends another layer to the honesty “My Body’s My Buddy” offers its listeners.
If the song has inspired you to try the letter-writing exercise, Tessa has some advice. “It’s not a test!” She encourages anyone who wants to try to switch up the exercise as they need to, writing longer or shorter letters and adjusting the length of the breaks between letters. Why? She knows it can be hard. “Maybe if you’ve never spoken with your body or through your body before, your body doesn’t know what to say yet, or you don’t know how to connect with it, and it’s okay,” she said. “It’s an exercise and it’s a process.”
Tessa wisely said to us, “There’s wisdom in everything.” Intimate moments like her bachelorette retreat aren’t the only places she finds new outlooks for life. While watching the history drama Vikings, Tessa found this advice amidst a brutal Viking-age battle: “Whatever’s going to happen is going to happen, so you don’t have to worry about the result of it. You just have to do your best.” She finds peace in the idea that an outcome is an outcome and that you can only control your actions leading up to it. You can only lose time to worrying, and shame is not productive.
Tessa told us that she believes her songs are her home, and she has enjoyed opening this room up to us. The TikTok mirror trend of singing “My Body’s My Buddy” to your reflection created a specific kind of catharsis for Tess and her listeners, and she sees your Instagram DMs about how the song has touched your hearts and changed your perspective. While the letters that inspired this song were deeply personal, Tessa knows that this is a conversation that connects all of our bodies. Regardless of the quality of our relationships with them—positive, negative, or neutral—we are all tied to our bodies for life.
Tessa hopes to share the full project of healing songs next year. She admits that these are songs she wrote to sing to herself. But she knows that songs like “My Body’s My Buddy” can offer us all new ways to think and communicate with each other and ourselves. “Some people live in their heads. I am people,” she said.
She left us with some final advice. “Your story is not over yet…” she said, noting that we are part of our own stories and so many aspects of our larger communities and the world. “…and you have power to steer this ship toward a direction you would like.”
“My Body’s My Buddy” and “My Body’s My Buddy ft. Corook” are streaming now.
