Loving your body

I spoke with a guy named John who is a therapist and healer of sorts. He has a talent for pulling out subconscious beliefs and emotional wounds. I cried through most of the two hours we spent together and yet I came away feeling lighter freer and happier. I wanted to explore the possibility that illness and disease often has an emotional cause or influence. My friend (J) asked me what my long term goals were and I couldn’t come up with anything meaningful. She mentioned she was excited and motivated and passionate about her work, world travel, renovating her home and investing in property and later moving interstate to be with family and friends. Listening to her speak I realized that I had become very comfortable and probably lacked passion. I argued that I was content but she did make me wonder if perhaps my contentment was just another way of saying “Is that all there is?” Of course the big question behind all the questioning was really “How passionate am I about living or more succinctly do I want to stay or go?”

‘Of course I want to live’ is a hard response to be open-minded about; we just assume that we do. I love life, I love my family and friends and I love my home and my work.

My session with John revealed that I was also quite comfortable about dying. I felt a sense of curious anticipation and in a way I saw death as reward or achievement rather than any kind of failure. Naturally I had fears about pain and suffering but the actual death thing seemed like nothing more than passing through a veil and going home. Timing seemed to be the biggest disappointment; that is, that death is fine but just not now – later. Guilt seemed to be the strongest emotion I felt; I really felt that I would be hurting everyone I cared about. I felt so ashamed that I would leave people who counted on me, like I was breaking a promise or being irresponsible or insensitive to the love and support that we shared.

I don’t want to be a really old lady living in a corpse. I don’t want to be the last one left. Dying old and alone and frail and probably broke is an awful concept, so I guess I do have a preference for dying young – but, not this young – sometime later, but not too much later. I also compared merits of a fast and unexpected death as opposed to a long or predictable death. Getting your house in order before you leave has advantages. Saying goodbye to loved ones, releasing old resentments, destroying diaries, paying bills, writing a will and making sure all the undies are clean.

I gave all of this quite a lot of thought and analysis but in the end I realized that although I certainly did hold fears about death and dying they were not really my true expectations and I don’t believe that I am unconsciously willing myself to die. All in all I am not through yet and I am not complacent or bored with life. Things do disappoint me but I am not disappointed in life itself. I do think it’s good to bring these things up and reappraise them. So much of our thinking is space junk floating around in our minds, but when I dissected it all, I knew that I did not believe that death is a matter of suffering or defeat. When I am ready to go, I will do so consciously and with ease.

One of the greatest things about meditation is that I experience myself as something other than a physical body. Everyday I am reminded that I am an energy form and every day I practice staying in that awareness as much as I can. It keeps me fearless and it keeps me connected and secure. Occasionally I become a little wobbly and having this illness has pulled me into the fascination of physical and emotional melodramas. When I am balanced and operating from my centre I don’t buy into all of this, but I do think it is a good exercise to check in from time to time to release any old baggage that might still be influencing my thoughts and reactions.

John also bought up issues about the breast symbolizing nurturing. We talked about childhood situations in which I might have felt unprotected or unsupported. We spoke about punishment and shame and how we often over compensate as adults by trying to nurture or protect others. I have recognized this in myself and have often had to pull myself back from becoming exhausted by other people’s problems. My thoughts on this are that if you had a lot of punishment in your childhood you develop a strong intuition for danger. I have a highly developed sixth sense and have noticed that most psychics or intuitives will also have a background of punishment or abuse. It might be viewed as empathy or compassion or it might be an instinct to take on someone else’s suffering. I will often feel pain in my body or a sense of sadness which I know is not my own. There is also the psychological response of looking after everyone else first and pushing down or denying our own needs. I’m not sure how great an influence these things are in relation to breast cancer but I do see that bleeding out personal vitality could very well show up as a physical manifestation.

I have had to think long and hard about many things these past weeks. How we perceive ourselves is often just a matter of comfortable wording. Is it kindness, empathy and healing that I am offering or just a habit of taking on too much of other peoples stuff? Am I content with life or is it really a nice word for indifferent or bored? Am I guilty about letting people down? Or Am I just making myself indispensable? Am I really helping people or controlling them or avoiding my own stuff?

I’ll probably never come up with anything definite on these questions as it’s probably all of that and more or perhaps even none of the above at all. But, what I have recognized is that I must take better care of my own needs and allow others to be a bit more responsible for theirs. It’s a matter of life and death for me now. John probably summed it up best when he said, “You can teach a man to fish and he will have food forever, but it’s not your job to drink the ocean just to make his fishing easier.”

I’m not about to go into any in-depth therapies or spend much time dissecting and analysing these things. What I needed from this session was to bring up and release anything which takes me away from loving myself or my life. I have known this all along and I try to live my life in love, gratitude and joy. A few months ago, I would have argued that I had mastered this; my life was very good and my health was getting better and better all of the time. What cancer has done for me is laugh in my face and yell, “You ain’t even close yet”. My ability to love has still been guarded. My attention to health has been good, but a little complacent. I have had goals but they have been hobbies rather than passions. I laugh and have fun but still maintained cynicism and criticism. I have so much to be grateful for and still manage to obsess about what I think I need. I am very proud of myself, but I am also very hard on myself. Of course this is very human, but there is nothing like a ‘Times Up’ card to gain immediate attention to what matters.

Most of all I have learned to love my body. I feel like weeping for myself and all of the other women who have and continue to have this insane disrespect, disapproval and disconnection from their own bodies. I am angry with myself and angry with every person who ever stated or suggested that a women’s body was not valuable or lovable if it isn’t magazine replicated. I have sat each morning for weeks now, just tuning in and speaking with my body. Initially I felt self-conscious and uncomfortable. I had to pretend or imagine that I loved myself, as I kept hearing those silly self criticisms rise to the surface. Today I am filled with joy and admiration and appreciation; I am totally here, inside myself and living in this minute.

Sonya Green www.reinventingmyself.com