Listening to the Body

My father used to say "some lessons in life need to be learned more than once." It was his understated and judgement-free way of saying forgive yourself for repeating mistakes. We are more likely to berate ourselves (I can't believe I did that again! I should know better!). That creates tension in the body which tips us away from the homeostasis of body and mind that leads to vibrant health. Compassion does the opposite - it calms us, reassures us. And we need to give it to ourselves as often as we possibly can. 

On a healing path, a BIG lesson we must learn is to listen to our bodies and respect what they are telling us. I think I've learned that lesson about 100,000 times and I still have more learning to do. When we experience distress, it is a sign that it's time to pause and tune in. What is out of balance here? What does my system need to get back to peace, calm, contentment? 

In my experience, physical pain is an especially difficult teacher. Of course we all know that pain is the body's warning system and is required for survival. We touch a hot stove and the pain tells us to jerk our hand away to avoid getting burned. We break a bone and the pain persists until we get it fixed. But when pain turns chronic, it is harder to work with it. There's no reflexive response. We no longer know WHY the pain is there or how to ease it. Medical doctors don't have much to offer beyond pain killers because they don't really understand it either. 

Then we get emotionally involved with it. It is frustrating, infuriating, depressing, isolating. We feel helpless and angry at it. We get terribly frightened - will it ever go away? The list of things we can't do starts to grow and we panic. Will I be able to do what I need to do in my life? What will I lose? Will I lose everything? Why can't anyone help me? Is it all in my head (that's a particularly nasty thought process!) Did I cause it? What am I doing to exacerbate it? What can I do to ease it. Often these questions have no answers. The fear and frustration grow.

These thoughts and emotions send the body further into a biochemical tailspin. Cortisol, the stress hormone, spikes. Seratonin, which gives us a sense of well-being, drops. Blood flows away from the GI tract, slowing digestion and causing discomfort and chronic dysfunction. Our muscles tense, our breathing grows more shallow. Our immune systems kick into gear increasing inflammation in the body. Soon nearly all of the systems of the body are out of balance, and we are stuck in emotional distress and negative thought spirals. All of these phenomena increase our sensation of pain. And the cycle gets locked into place.

We expend a lot of energy searching for causes and cures -- that's how we are trained to work with our bodies when something goes wrong. Those efforts usually fail and that failure throws more fuel on the pain-fire. We try to ignore it, to push through it -- often because we have to. Have to go to work. Have to care for a child. Have to do the grocery shopping. Have to make dinner. But pain was not designed to be ignored. It starts with a wisper, but if we don't listen it is going to escalate until it gets to a scream. It is at this point that many people experience a crisis and find themselves seriously immobilized or disabled. 

Then there's no choice other than to listen. But to actually begin to heal - to reverse the domino effect that brought us to this place, we have to find a way to break the cycle. We need to stop asking WHY (why do I hurt) and start asking WHAT (what does my body need in order to regain its balance?) 

Chronic pain sufferers go through this process over and over again. It took me more than 20 years, and the wise counsel of a brilliant therapist, to learn to respect the limits that the pain was setting. Because that's what it was doing -- it was setting limits. No, you can't do all of that in one day. Sorry. I know you feel you need to but you simply can't. Ok ok ok ok I hear you. So what CAN I do? I accept you, body, as you are, with these limits. Help me learn how to live in harmony with you so that you can stop screaming at me. Please?

It took a long time to undo the sense that my body was an adversary - I was so angry at it for hurting, for getting in the way of the life I wanted to lead. I was determined to NOT LET IT DEFEAT ME. I pursued a career, brought two miraculous children into the world, built a full and busy life that looked the lives of everyone else around me. And I raged when the pain protested. 

Then an analogy finally stuck for me. Would you treat your child this way? If she cries, do you ignore her? No, you go to her and figure out what she needs and then you give that to her. If he says "I can't," do you say, "yes you can, just DO IT.?" No, you help him find a way to do it - or you do it for him if he is not able.  So why are we so unforgiving and harsh with ourselves when we know perfectly well how to be compassionate and helpful to those we love?

Oh. My body is the baby here. It needs my tender loving care. My understanding. My compassion. It needs to be accommodated. I have to get past the fear that if I listen to it -- if I stop what I am doing when it hurts -- that I will be totally disabled. We're in this together (it's kind of ridiculous to even separate "me" and "my body" in this way but it helps to make a point). 

How can I create a life that is full and rich and whole WITHIN THE LIMITS of my physical comfort range? Not forever - but to begin the process of breaking the cycle. To begin to calm the system so it can work its way back to balance. 

For me - like many people - I began to learn this when I had pretty much totally fallen apart. When I was in so much pain that I could no longer work, or do most of the things that daily life requires. I was blessed -- I had support. I had people who did for me, took care of me, and taught me to reframe the entire situation. And slowly, gradually, I began to figure out how to heed the messages from my body - to stop when I needed to; to totally eliminate certain activities for a while; to make time for the things that helped; and my body began to calm down. 

It has NOT been a linear process! The problem with healing is that you get a little better and you're ecstatic, energized - now I can finally DO all those things that I had to stop doing before. And before you know it, you've overdrawn the account again and you feel worse. That is even more devastating than it was before! Crash, rebuild, overdo, crash. This is why chronic pain flares and wanes, flares and wanes. But I came to see that the swings could be less intense if I stopped before the crash. Conserving energy - literally like money in the bank - became the guiding principle of my life. And then, only then, could I start looking for resources that would help to move my healing to the next level.

It's beginning to hurt to sit right now. So while my brain would love to keep writing, I will sign off and go rest for a spell.