My job lately has become not questioning my body. I’ve become extremely good at questioning over the years, but have lately put in a great deal of work to un-do and disregard the voices that made me begin to question myself in the first place. Largely diet culture ones, but others as well.
The work seems to be paying off, because the voice of my bodily intuition has only gotten louder recently. This was reinforced by eating roasted sweet potatoes and cabbage recently even though I knew it wasn’t what my body wanted because I “should” be able to, and then promptly throwing up after an extreme wave of nausea washed over me. I humbly thanked my body and took note.
Or I will start a podcast that looks interesting, only to be told that maybe a walk in the forest and disconnection is what I really need. I will contemplate journaling, then be drawn to a breakup playlist instead. If I’ve just woken up from 12 hours of sleep but still need to rest, I am learning to no longer ask (in much the same way I’ve been questioned by others on the validity of my experience), “but how can you really be feeling that tired? You should feel fine after so much rest.”
Now, there is an important distinction here between questioning ourselves vs questioning the truth of our body. When there are a lot of voices in our head it can get very messy and feel near impossible to distinguish what really belongs to us from what we’ve taken in to be truth based on cultural ideas and others’ opinions. For me, the feeling of relief is what marks a “successful” pivot, the relaxation that comes with going with the flow, instead of forcing against it. It’s an ongoing experiment and inner dialogue that will look different for everyone, one that above all else requires building trust and the safety to make mistakes.
Mindfulness
When dealing with pain.
I remember reading once that relaxing during a vehicle collision would lessen the probability of injury, or even death. While there is some dispute around that particular fact, relaxing when we least want to has been an important reminder these past two weeks.
I’ve been experiencing an extremely high level of physical pain lately. A severe systemic nervous system inflammation, followed by another very inflamed back tooth, has led to feeling elevated pain day in and day out. While this is not something I would wish to prolong, and there’s no sugarcoating the rawness, it has forced me to become very embodied. When painkillers make only a dent, there’s no running away from the experience. There’s no way of distracting oneself, and, while it’s exhausting, it’s also very grounding.
We can become so used to resisting pain when it arises, whether emotional or physical, and often without even realizing that we’re doing it. We instantly label it as wrong. Often we blame ourselves. But what if we relaxed into the pain? What if it became a neutral experience? This does not mean ignoring the message. I definitely went to the dentist for my tooth. It means relaxing enough to hear what our body is telling (or shouting at) us, to be with ourselves in a softer way when there’s no instant fix.
Notes on experiencing long-term dis-ease.
Notes on experiencing a long term dis-ease:
Three years feels like a long time to be unwell. One could say it’s been a lot longer than three years, because I experienced extreme disordered eating for quite a while before then. But, three years of living with the fallout, of feeling exhausted from flip flopping between 12 hours of sleep and insomnia, of food reactions and food fear and brain fog and wild mood fluctuations.
Long term illnesses are very expensive financially. Between my parents and I we’ve spent thousands on supplements and out of network specialists after being told by multiple conventional doctors that they could do nothing for me. I feel very lucky to have access to the resources that we do, while also feeling repeatedly brokenhearted and outraged at how badly the U.S healthcare system fails the people who need it the most.
When you’re very unwell in your early 20s, there’s a grieving period for what is often referred to as “the prime of your life”. You know, that time when you’re establishing independence from your family, working for the dream, dating, networking, etc. Right now I cannot do “normal” things that one often does in their 20s, and I’ve needed to make peace with that reality. For a while I refused to accept the limitations, and would override them only to be out for days. Eventually I realized that it’s rarely worth doing that.
There is a roller coaster of feelings involved. There are days where I feel very at peace with the way my life has unfolded and everything that has led up to where I am now. Then there are those when I wake up feeling exhausted and in pain for the 967th day in a row and break down because I don’t want to do this anymore, don’t want to experience another day in a body that feels so entirely out of whack, where I feel overwhelmed, lonely, and behind in life, worried that it will be this way forever. There is no escape option though. Those are the days when I have learned to really slow down and be so soft with those parts, to make it entirely fine to watch my favourite show in bed for as long as is needed. To validate everything that I’m feeling as entirely normal and understandable.
Part 2 up next.
Errors.
The inevitability of making mistakes as a human can be a tough pill to swallow.
When we accidentally hurt someone, when we are reactive, when we are reminded of our own messiness- do we armor up, become defensive, look away and pretend it never happened? Or can we sit with humility and allow it ground us, to further open us to the world?
Instead of categorizing them as failure, we can take the necessary steps to move forward and remedy our errors with grace. We can bow our heads and acknowledge that, even though we do the best we can, we always have more to learn, and that there is nothing wrong with that.