Body, mind, and spirit (A confession to my body)

(painting by me)

Out of the blue this feels right to do as I realize that “you” and I did not always have a loving and accepting relationship. Today I acknowledge that the fault is all mine and that most of the time I couldn’t appreciate you the way you are, wishing you’d be different. I gave little attention, never realizing all the hard work you do for me in an effort to get me around and taking care of my daily business. We have been together for a long time and I should know you better than anyone. I should hear your words and warnings when you talk to me about your own struggles, but in most instances, I am selfish, making it all about “me” while finding little compassion for what you face on a daily basis. Today this changes and these words are dedicated to you, my body, because in the end it is you and me who are in this together. There is no separation and equal amounts of attention need to be given as we are a part of each other, body, mind and spirit. One can’t be healthy without the other and together we stand.

I’ve thought long and hard about what I wanted to say to you and there is so much. I could recount numerous occasions, and it is easy to see that I never gave you the credit you so much deserved. From little on, in my teens I had to go to physical therapy because a physical part of me wasn’t developing as it should. I was too young to understand and therefore didn’t blame you, but I do remember some of the excruciating exercises I had to perform to correct the issue. It was no fun to say the least and perhaps it was the beginning of us not being closes. Maybe in a silly not knowing way, through the eyes of a child that didn’t know any better, indirectly I did blame you and thought something was wrong with me. Funny how this feeling and false interpretation somehow became a theme song for me in many other instances of my life always looking for the fault within.

Years later while hitting puberty, I was a late bloomer and the pure pressures of school and classmates who were already visible further ahead of me, caused me to not be patient with you. I couldn’t understand your beautiful works, your process that couldn’t be rushed, that was turning me into a beautiful young woman. I put you under pressure and didn’t appreciate you for all the wonders you were doing for me. As long as I remember there was always something wrong with you in my eyes, although I should have always loved you. Even at my skinniest times, (which looks sick and anorexic to me now), I still found things not meeting my expectations, things wrong with you, whatever they might have been at that time.

I even went as far as evasively changing your appearance in a far cry to save my marriage. What was I thinking? I’ve fed you with junk food because I struggled to make ends meet in today’s middle class. Living healthy was not affordable and convenient. I did the best I could, but never realized how hard this must been on you, nourishing you with junk instead of the right fuel. I expected performance from you, but didn’t create the right conditions for you to support me. Still, you stayed strong for many years while I worked very hard. My jobs were demanding and physical, barely giving me enough time to eat a decent meal. Often there was no time for breaks and the junk had to be devoured with barely taking a breather. Unhealthy eating habits were formed and I still to this day I eat fast, swallowing big chunks without chewing properly. I constantly stop to remember myself to eat slowly, to chew well and give you bitesize little chunks to process. I know I create so much extra work for you having to break down a meal that must be lying in my stomach like a rock before it can be passed own through my system.

Stress and anxiety has been a constant companion in my life and we have fought more battles than we know to count together. You’ve always been a warrior and supported me for the longest, but time was taking its toll and I didn’t notice. You kept it all hidden for me and fought on to face another day. As a way to cope with it all, I fed you with smoke for many years during my smoking days. It couldn’t have been fun for you. I treated you like an ashtray, engulfing you in clouds of smoke instead of letting you breathe clean air, choking the breath right out of you. Luckily the day came when I felt ready and quit cold turkey after buying two full packs of cigarettes.

The damage was done and this all happened right around the time when I became sick with the RA. Everything went haywire and you were showing me what a life could look like, unable to perform the most basic tasks. I surely deserved it, never appreciating anything you did for me before. There were many painful lessons that crippled me over the next month and everything spiraled out of control. The once thought chubby woman (in my perception) was gaining weight I couldn’t get rid of. I found myself stuck in a vicious cycle of being in too much pain to exercise and no way of losing it. After month and month of suffering the RA finally went into remission, something I never thought possible, and still I could not claim a fully healthy lifestyle, balanced with my work and in line with body, mind and spirit. I had to continue doing what I had to and I needed you to support me and perform. I didn’t ask for your help and I didn’t thank you for allowing me to feel better, it just became the expectation. Surely I’ve been healthier by not smoking anymore, but now it was my weight that became my new struggle, leaving me feeling out of shape and challenged to get fit. I simply didn’t feel comfortable on many levels and once again it caused me to look at you negatively. How could I get better, I was still working physically demanding jobs with too little time in between to care for myself properly. But perhaps this just sounds like another poor excuse because where there is a will, there is also a way.

Looking back, it is clear that something was missing. I never fully learned my lesson during my first RA struggles. I failed to see how hard you work for me every day to accomplish all my tasks big and small. It should have been so easy to see, but I chalked it up to other things, such as the willpower to quit smoking, which ultimately you supported as well, through a state of body and mind. I thought it was all me doing it, but who am I? What makes me me? I am a combination of you and I never fully gave you any credit and thanks. It is now and many years later that I finally arrive at this realization. There is a sense of remorse for all the time that has passed, but there is also a sense of relief, of finally having come to that conclusion and seeing clearly. I am grateful for these lessons and the ability to learn them. I fear some others might never will and become bitter in the process of it, feeling like victims and life dealings of the short end of the stick. I say better late than never, and you have my word that positive chances are just around the corner.

What brought me to this point was you and a second reminder. It’s been months and months of struggling with physical pain. Physically I am at the heaviest weight I have ever been, regardless of what I try to lose it. Just thinking and worrying about it seems to do the exact opposite, and I only gain more. It’s quite unusual for someone who has always been thin, and yes as a by product and result of such, I haven’t been very happy with you. This experience has caused me to be very harsh and unforgiving to myself and to you. I see a picture I don’t like in the mirror, but I don’t see the weight you have to carry each day. I don’t acknowledge how hard you, my heart, and all of my self has to work each day, just to make me see another sunrise. I have been ungrateful and don’t give you the credit to make all those things possible for me, despite of thinking that I am a person that doesn’t take things for granted. I know that I have taken for granted some of the most important things in our life’s, not intentionally, but I have. Poor choices, or being stuck in a rut and routine, having to make a living, included.

It was on Monday where all this realization came into focus after a nightmare I had. A significant dream, dreamt by me who hardly ever dreams with my eyes closed. It took a second time around to learn a lesson I should have learned the first time, but I also know the circumstances were not right to fully execute the tools I had at the time. Again you spoke to me through pain, a pain that would force me to listen. You knew I wouldn’t otherwise and I would continue to go ahead on that same destructive path. Once again you rendered me helpless, with pains that took me to the very edge. Along the way you gave me enough glimpses and signs to figure it out, and one such sign was Germany and seeing the nice doctor that helped me. I was so sure that my pains were caused from an RA flare up, but according to him and a blood test he disagreed and said it wasn’t so. That never fully registered with me as the only intense pain like this could only be related to my prior struggles. I never put it together until now that there is such a thing as feeling physical pain through your emotional state of being. The good doctor gave me two shots, one cortisone and another to calm me down, allowing me to get some distance from the emotional dramas that were unfolding in my life.

It was Monday that it became clear to me that my pains are caused from an emotional state of being. From stress, from anxiety about issues in my life that remain unresolved. I don’t know how but I just know. It was then, that I finally stopped blaming you, and realized that I have some tools to make these changes. Your message was loud and clear and you showed me what it feels like to lose the things I never appreciated from you. To feel helpless and crippled, unable to perform basic tasks. Today I am here to say that I am sorry and it’s not nearly enough. I still want you to help me lose wait, but it is so we can have a healthier partnership together. I will never again underestimate everything you do for me, and I hope that through body, mind and spirit we regain full range of motion, without everything being such a struggle.

I still have a tough path ahead of me and the future will require some work, but it looks positive and peaceful, and you will definitely like it there. I will never rush like I needed to before feeding you with junk and not listening to you by pushing on in an unhealthy manner. Together we will work as a team and resolve all issues to put our best life forward. I need you help and support, and I ask you to please invest in me and forgive me. I give thanks to the days with reduced pain, the days you give me another chance to move with more freedom, while I make conscious choices to support our mission. Water included and you shall not run dehydrated again. I’ve long learned my lesson that it is not too expensive or impossible to live healthier. You either pay for it now or you do later, and sometimes it’s just a matter of preplanning and execution.

Tonight as we enter the pink full moon, I will celebrate these new beginnings and give my old self back to the creator. To let the past stand where it belongs and to set the intentions for manifesting a new future. 2019 remains a year of preparation and change. To get situated to where body, mind, and spirit can exist in peace and as one. Tonight this shall be sealed and sent to the universe as I shed the things that no longer serve my purpose and emerge in a clear path, united as one.