This Body is in Pain (But the Homework Will Lift You Up)
This year I’m posting three times per month: WORDS on the 3rd, PICTURES on the 13th, and SOUND on the 23rd which morphed into The Accidental Muralist Podcast.
Here are today’s WORDS. May they be a healing salve to your body and soul.
Stick With Me, Because You’re Going to Like Where This Ends Up
I have a delicious homework assignment for you today — a twist on our ongoing creative work of Imagining Better Ways.
Keep that in mind, because there’s a deep weariness in the air that I need to acknowledge first. Before we can get to the light, we have to get real about some of the muck that’s causing all this anguish.
I struggled mightily to find today’s WORDS. Death is everywhere, and not enough people seem to care. Or else they care about this death, but not that one. No words are sufficient, and mine so often doesn’t feel like the right voice for the moment.
But then, as I should have expected by now, I found Truth in the Body. That’s what I want to share.
First, Let’s Talk About Our National Body
My own body feels better than it has in a while, but I’ll get to that later.
The aching corporeal mass I want to talk about first is our political body — the body politic here in the United States. We’ve got severe health issues, and we’re being asked to decide on a treatment plan. I’m not simply talking about whether to keep or toss the Affordable Care Act, or whom to vote for on election day (which is November 3rd; register to vote here), although those choices have far-reaching consequences and should be taken seriously.
We’re being asked in this moment whether our whole body deserves care, or if maybe these two fingers and that rib and one of our knees are expendable. Some might suggest amputating the entire left side.
The question is, are we one marvelously complex, beloved unit, or should we lop off and discard a few parts so the rest of the body will (supposedly) feel better? And (related) which parts are the really important ones?
The Body Remembers
As a nation, we’ve been generating and storing trauma in our collective bones for over 400 years now: the effects of slavery, genocide of indigenous people, white supremacy, wars, racism, classism, misogyny, economic depression, and more. As Bessel van der Kolk teaches us, the body keeps the score. Trauma does not magically go away with time and willful forgetting.
We’ve accumulated so much dis-ease in this national body that I believe it’s going to kill us unless we start taking our body’s messages seriously. There are signs that this fragile democracy of ours may not survive, it’s been so severely mistreated.
If it dies — if we slip into authoritarianism after the election — it will be a great irony. We’ll be done in by American Exceptionalism, also known as Your Beautiful Suburban Dream. It’s the idea that we (read: white people) need not suffer; that as Americans, we (white people, again) are somehow immune to the forces that take down other nations — things like pandemics, economic chaos, and dictators. It contains the notion that we don’t need to work at being a democracy, that it just happens naturally here because we’re special.
These beliefs have kept lots of people in denial about our health as a democratic country. They act as if looking away, or thinking wishfully, or blaming our frizzy hair for this raging intestinal cancer, will make the cancer go away.
Then There’s Our Global Body
Our Earth is another body in pain. (Remember, there’s soul-soothing Imagination Work coming soon! Stay with me!) Scientists have connected the pandemic to the climate crisis and the myriad ways we’ve ravaged Nature over the last few centuries, throwing out of balance the very planetary body that has always supported us.
We forget that we are Nature. Our bodies are part of the Earth, not bosses of the Earth. If the coffins we buried our loved ones in weren’t so fancy and polished (I’ve told my family I prefer a simple cotton sack, if it’s legal by then), we’d see in plainer detail just how much a part of the Earth we truly are, in the end. Maybe you’ve buried a small pet in the backyard (RIP Tootsie the guinea pig ❤️), so you get it. Or you’ve used an outhouse or peed in the bushes lately. 😉 We are the Earth. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
Disconnection from Nature, and the dualistic, us-versus-them way we’ve been taught to see the world, are contributing to our demise.
It’s a Reflection of Our Own Body Care
Why all this dis-ease and un-rest? Let’s look at how we treat our individual bodies here in the US. This is not about body-shaming or finger-pointing. It’s about facing the situation and making connections, and I promise that we’ll do some uplifting sensory work very soon. ✨
Our obesity rate just grew from 30% in 2000 to over 42% in 2018, according to the CDC.
We continue to fill our bodies with products that pose as food but that contain things not found in nature. The fast food and junk food industries are thriving.
We’re more heavily medicated than ever. It seems like everyone wants to sell us a pill to cure ailments we didn’t know we were suffering from/didn’t know existed.
We’re highly addicted, whether it’s to our phones, busy-ness, work, the news, alcohol, opioids, exercise, or the myriad other ways we’ve found to numb our feelings of despair.
We don’t get enough rest and/or we rely on meds to help us sleep.
Of course this summary does not reflect the habits of every single one of us. I am surrounded by people who take pretty darn good care of themselves, compared to the national averages. But too many individuals don’t, and that makes us a pretty sick society.
When I Feel Overwhelmed
Sorry about that harsh reality check, but we’re all grown-ups here. These issues are not directly our fault, but they’re our responsibility to deal with.
I have a few strategies that usually help move me out of overwhelm. One is doodling, of course. 🤓📝 (I hope to share exciting news about my doodle book soon!)
Another is to dial it way back into my own little sphere.
See, I have a tendency to want to solve all the problems of the world single-handedly, right now! It’s mentally exhausting, not to mention (of course) impossible and arrogant. So when I’m spinning out in Why-Can’t-I-Fix-This? despair, it helps me to focus on what I can do in my home, with my people, with my body.
Reconnect With Your Body ✨ (We made it! Woohoo!)
Believe me, I was going to go on about the pleasure-denying Puritans who founded our country and all the ways we’ve been trained out of feeling — had to stop feeling — in order to perpetrate all of those evils against our fellow humans, throughout American history.
But that’s enough doom and gloom for today. Let’s get on to the Homework Assignment! (It sounds like I’m torturing you! Thanks for staying with me this far. Your trust in me to bring you somewhere worthwhile is amazing. 🙏🏽)
Here are some things I know, because my body teaches me and I’ve learned to pay attention:
She (my body) loves deep inhalations of clean, pre-dawn air.
She delights in picking raspberries off the vine and popping those tiny velvety nubby vessels onto her tongue.
Her hips want to sway to the music as her feet tap the rhythm.
She feels expansive (literally) when stretched, and is entitled/thrilled to take up as much space as she possibly can.
Ditto above re: artwork, writing, dancing, and relationships.
She’s comforted by holding a warm mug to her cheek.
She’s endlessly entertained by the antics of squirrels and cats.
Smearing paint with her fingers feels natural and useful.
A breeze on her skin through the window on a warm night fills her with lovely memories of camping next to the river.
Being upside-down gives her an interesting perspective on the world.
I could go on, but I wanted to share just TEN luscious treats that I freely and regularly give to my body.
Your Homework Assignment
Your assignment is to list TEN THINGS that give your body pleasure. Hint: “eating” is not good enough! Be specific. Eating which food, cooked how and by whom, paired with which beverage and in the company of _________? Now you’re cooking! (Did you catch the pun?)
Pay attention and practice the art of delighting yourself. Indulge your senses. Pay attention to what your body loves/craves/desires, and treat it like the magical creature that it is! Your body is incredible.
In this age of thoughtlessly dehumanizing others and disconnecting from our own bodies in order to do it, maintaining our connection to ourselves is a survival tactic. And an act of resistance.
You and your body are beautiful, valuable, irreplaceable, magnificent, and filled with potential. I love you and I honor you.
A Little Prayer to End With
When I started doing yoga regularly after moving back to Portland three years ago, I found myself saying a little prayer at the end of each class. The words appeared in my head one night, and I just went with it, even before I really believed them:
“Thank you for my strong, flexible, healthy body. And help me remember that the body is the source and container of all wisdom.”
Recently I’ve expanded it a bit:
“Thank you for my kind, strong, flexible, healthy [occasionally other adjectives appear] body. Help me remember that the body is the source and container of all wisdom, because my body is Nature, and Nature is wise.”
As always, I love hearing your responses to my words, either in the comments below or via email.
Wishing you strength, rest, and loving care for your sacred body,
- Pam
P.S. In the spirit of directing financial support to Black-owned businesses, here are two more resources:
1) This article highlights Black-owned banks and how to support them.
2) This website helps you buy products online from Black-owned businesses. You can type in a product and see which businesses offer them, or search by category or interest area.