Taking Your Body Back...

There are lots of ways we lose ourselves in this life.  

Trauma

Grief

Abuse

Neglect

Lots of ways for us to become disconnected from our bodies.  A split between who we are as a whole and the parts of that whole.

There are many ways to deal with this:

Disassociation

Alcohol/drug use

Starvation

Over Eating

Shopping

Gambling

I guess I could have really just said disassociation, the rest of my list is redundant.

I have done most of the above. At first, in some sort of misguided idea that I could kill that which made me vulnerable in the first place.  I placed a lot of shame and blame on my body, when it really wasn’t its fault at all.  It was just there being the venerable host for this human life.  The things taken from it, carved into and out of it, not its fault at all. But it became the place where shame resided.  My belly in particular.  I think we all have that hollowed out place in us, where insecurity, dread, and self denigration set up camp and make a homestead.  And it takes a long time to find peace, if you ever do.

The surgery I had on Wednesday was yet another chapter in self reclamation.  I don’t know if it will make it worse or better, but I had to try.  Feeling like you are trapped in a body that is not your own...or is your own, but bears such horrible imagery from the past that you cannot look at it and love it at the same time.

So I altered it. In truth, it is no different than what I have been doing for years.  I just did it this time in a more formal way, a very intentional way.  And like with everything else, I have no idea what the result will be.  It is all just trial and error.  I do know though, that I have spent decades healing that which festered below. I do believe I have healed it from the inside out.  I resisted the annual, sometimes daily urge, to fix it from the outside in.  But some intuitive part of me knew that I could not, I would not be able to ever heal if I attempted to redress the outsides, leaving the interior to rot.  Lord knows I tried very hard to do that for a long period of time.  It has taken my life time to come into my own.  To live an authentic life where I not only love me, but also, most of the time, like me.

I feel like I have turned another corner on healing.  I guess we will see if I still feel that way when the swelling shrinks, the bruises fade and the pain subsides...

I guess what I want to own today is that it takes a long time to love yourself.  And, at least for me, there were a lot of years of hating me that were a prerequisite.  And, I guess, it takes a lot of time to take your body back.  To inhabit it completely, fully and hopefully more lovingly.  I know though that I am doing better because when I look at my swollen, bruised exterior, it kind of finally feels like it looks the way it should have years ago.  Like the trauma is now visible...

And maybe that isn’t healing for you...but it absolutely is for me.

Again, still...