The other day, I rolled out my dusty purple yoga mat in my bedroom, and stood at one end, ready to launch into my usual fifteen minute yoga routine.
On a whim, I thought, why not set an intention for this practice?
This is unusual. Generally, I don’t bother with intentions or thoughtfulness. I often breathe prayers while I’m in postures, and not much else. But I was writing a piece on yoga, and was trying to be more intentional in general about my practice, so this was a place to start.
I considered for a moment, and thought, how about gratitude for my body?
I generally do feel grateful for my body. Somehow, despite my sister’s eating disorder and my fifteen years of ballet, I don’t hate my thighs, I don’t mind being naked, and I don’t struggle with body dysmorphia.
I didn’t think gratitude for my body was a difficult intention.
Blithely, I bent forward and wrapped my arms around my legs, and thought, thank you legs, for being strong and flexible. Thank you thank you.
To my shock, my eyes filled with tears.
Down into plank position I went. Thank you, thank you, dear body.
More tears. It was like I had found an aquifer in my chest.
Where was that grief coming from?
Ever since then, I have been piecing it together. The jitteriness that resulted from hearing over and over again that people I love had been sexually assaulted. The depression that has come when I’m at my weakest, and made me doubt my own internal rudder. My own weariness of struggling with anxiety every day.
I might like my thighs just fine. Even so, sometimes I feel my body betrays me.
All of us feel our bodies betray us, at some point. I have friends who have discovered cancer nestled in their throat, or lost a baby in the last trimester. I have friends who haven’t been able to lose the weight they longed to lose, or who suffer from chronic pain.
It can feel like betrayal when our bodies do not work as instructed. When good things—a child’s touch, good food, exercise, sex, swimsuits, or a pregnancy—repel us instead instead of pleasing us.
It is so easy to be resentful of good gifts when we cannot enjoy them how we want to, or how we think we ought to. It’s easy to frame our body’s frailties as betrayal.
What I’ve realized, though, is my body recognizes my resentment. It clutches it like a wilted flower. It curls into itself, and guards itself from my lack of compassion.
That night I set a grateful intention, my resentment surfaced. It caught me off guard to understand how curt I was with my fragile bones.
My dear friend Jerusha—who has written a few books about mental health and brain function—told me that the parts of the brain that control anxiety are the same ones that control gratitude. Physically the two feelings are mutually exclusive.
It’s like Philippians 4:6 wired in our synapses. If we feel grateful, we can’t feel anxious.
And vice-versa.
I am grateful for my thighs, but am I grateful for my ridiculously large personal space bubble? Am I grateful that I experienced depression? Am I grateful that it doesn’t take much for me to panic?
Here’s what I’ve realized about some of the times my body has “failed” me: it reacts, immediately, when I ignore my emotions. It does not let me forget that I am a human being, not a robot.
I need to get used to this. I am in a body that will, eventually, fail.
Can I begin forgiving it, even now, for its limits?
Bruce Kramer, an educator and blogger who died a few years ago from ALS, was on one of my favorite NPR shows, On Being. It was about my favorite podcast, ever.
He recounted a conversation he had after his diagnosis:
I had this very funky healer call me, a friend of a friend…I said, “Well, let me tell you about what’s going on.” And she said, “Oh, no, I don’t need you to. I just need you to be quiet right now.” Finally, she says, “You are so angry. You have to forgive your body or this is not going to go well.”
Krista Tippet, the host, then quoted Kramer’s book, saying that as he dealt with his diagnosis, he tried to figure out, “How do we grow into the demands of what is beyond us?”
I keep asking myself this question.
I ask: how I am going to grow into the demands of my body (which are, let’s be honest, very minimal right now)? How am I going to accept this precious body I’ve been given, with all of its tics and quirks? How am I going to start treating it with reverence and compassion, instead of annoyance? How am I going to embrace that its fits and starts are part of who I am?
How am I going to embrace this body I have, and the grief I struggle with? How am I going to grow into its demands, even when they are beyond me?
Faith at Every Size
Wow, I will be sitting with that insight into anxiety for awhile. Isn’t it amazing that we can live at such odds with ourselves without even realizing it? I’m reading Walter Wangerin’s “Letters from the Land of Cancer” right now and find his insights into sickness, health and embodiedness deeply moving and insightful. Thanks, Heather.
Oh, that sounds like a good read. Gosh, I’m adding that to my list too! So many good suggestions 🙂
Thank you for this. I do struggle with body image and also being angry at my body for being anxious even when I do all the “right” things to prevent it. I didn’t realize it was that feeling but you are so right, I feel it betrays me when I so want to remain calm but my chest tightens and I can’t breathe and I feel so helpless to control it. Great things to ponder, thank you.
Oh, Nicole, this resonates with me so much. I’m sorry for the body image issues and anxiety you struggle with–it’s SO FRUSTRATING to want to respond a certain way to the world around me, and simply not be capable. I hope be both find more peace and acceptance with ourselves.
Yes, there are so many layers to the way we see ourselves. Even when we appreciate our body, I believe there is a grief in facing our limits. Thank you for talking about your experience with this, Heather.
You’re welcome, Aundi! Yes, and how to see all those layers? I’m intrigued that gratitude led me past my own blindness. Maybe there’s a way forward in that posture with all areas of my life.
Yup. I totally get the grieving for your body thing. Interesting about the gratitude vs anxiety thing – hadn’t heard that before till last week and have now heard it twice! Have you read Tara Owens’ book Embracing the Body? It’s SO good, and covers so many of the themes you raise here.
Sending you much love – to you and your body.
I want to read that book–thanks for the reminder…adding it to my list now 🙂
Beautiful Heather. Also, just read your piece over at the Bev’s blog and it’s starting to make sense now, the shift I’ve noticed in your writing the opening up of your history and family of origin stories.
You ask some very good questions here. I have been learning to practice radical self-love and compassion this year re: my own anxiety and “issues”, but even while doing so I’ve wondered if I could do the same for a physically ailing body, or quirky, or whatever. I don’t have body issues but I’ve got my other stuff and learning to love myself in all of that seems to be the big lesson of my life, at the least the big lesson of this decade and probably future decades as I accept wear and tear in my physical health.
Yeah, after that email, I started just going for it. Because I don’t have anything to lose anymore. That in itself is a very precious gift.
I like that Bruce Kramer quote for its gentleness: that the demands we’ll need to face are something we’ll grow into, doing, not be magically prepared for ahead of time. I need to believe that I can practice this art now, and later, and that improbably, my little bit of competence will grow into something that’s enough.
Wow, there’s some powerful writing in this piece. The bit about how your body recognises resentment and clutches at it like a wilted flower, guarding itself! And the bit about how your body reacts when you ignore your emotions… ! These points could be preached!!! If I do it, I will quote you!!
Someone once said: ‘God will forgive you but your body never will!’ That’s what this is all about. Great post, Heather, Thanks… x
oooh, that quote gives me shivers.
I would be so excited to have you preach from something I wrote 🙂 That would be AMAZING.
Heather another amazing post….it made me think, I need hold on to what I have now for I have no idea what my body will do in the future, what path it may lead me. When my eating disorder was at its worst, a doctor helped me realize I wanted to be little again. I wanted to be a little girl, to relive the years my body had been used and abused. I never thought I was pretty, I never thought my body was ok. When I look at pictures now of myself in high school, when the anorexia took over the bulimia, I was a trying to die.( and I was beautiful, although that is still hard to understand, and even type…)but… Now I am trying to LIVE. I don’t necessarily love all that I see…wrinkles and sun damage. But I want to LIVE. I want to embrace my existence. I want to show my daughter that she has reasons to live and to love the body she is in. After all, our body is a gift…..a gift of LIFE. your sister Katie
I love you, sis. You are beautiful, and I’m so thankful you reached out for life. xoxox