Listen to the Body

Our bodies speak to us, clearly and specifically,
if we are willing to listen to them.
Shakti Gawain


Despite the advances I have made:

Every morning I wake up with my jaws clenched tight.  I have broken so many back teeth in the last eight years  (which have been full of very challenging life circumstances) that I feel ashamed. I do occasionally get lower back pain that lands me in bed for days at a time.  I suffer from muscle strain and injury that the average duck wouldn't.  My feet are constantly aching.  My joints are sore because of how I hold my body.  (In a constant state of being  prepared for fight or flight).  And my ticker acts up ...though much less so...when I am tense. 

I  am physically tense.  I have always been. Yoga helps dramatically that is why I recommend it and teach it. Being off work helps more than I  realized it would. My spiritual practice is taking me beyond my mind's response to stress and old trauma to a more peaceful place. To the outside world I look more relaxed, centered and calm than I ever did.

 I am healing in leaps and bounds. I am so much better than I was, say in 2012, when my life circumstances started to change dramatically and traumatically. Yet, the truth is ...I am still tense.

The Body: a Reminder of the Healing Left to be done
 The body, I am realizing,  remembers and holds onto things even when we are able to get beyond the mind to some degree. Trauma does get entangled in our cells...possibly one of the reasons why we get cancer or other cell-destructive diseases???? Our body tension, then , is a good sign that we are not yet healed and a warning that we better take healing to the next level.

Possible Cause for my Own Body Tension


I have some challenges now dealing with the behaviour of a loved one whose choices make him  a definite risk to himself and to the community at large.  He has had very little social sanctioning or consequences for his behavioural choices and even when we are told something is about to go down in hope that it will protect him and others...it doesn't.  So, of course, the behaviours continue.

There is this collective and relayed perception  that he is "getting away" with one "social injustice' after another. That is true.   The people who feel violated come to us and say, "Why aren't you doing anything?" We have gone to the authorities several times with this definite observation in hope they would take over the reins of this.  They didn't. I have gone and pleaded with others to stop enabling only to find myself, indirectly enabling. Truth is I don't want it to be my responsibility to do anything.

We don't want it to be our responsibility. We...being myself, D., his extended family, and the authorities.  We are burnt out!  It is easier to turn our backs, close our eyes, and put our hands over our ears as we chant, "La!la!la!la!".

I believe in the Al-Anon axiom: You didn't break it!  You can't Fix it!  But I have gone beyond that to just not caring.  I close my eyes and try not to think of it.  And it seems that I am doing okay...in the peaceful center of "letting Go!" Yet, the moment he or his behaviour is mentioned; or heaven forbid the moment I am confronting him with these issues, my body tenses up. ...my sleep is disrupted...my ticker starts talking very loudly to me. My body speaks, when my mind won't.

I need to listen.  I am not sure, at this point, what my body is encouraging me to "do" or "be".

The Body's Message

Following the body's direction is not necessarily a matter of doing something...though it could mean taking part in some "inspired action."

The body's message is more, I believe, about becoming  aware by listening to it.  What does the body want us to hear? Maybe it is telling us that we were trying to "run away" from something we cannot run away from.  Maybe it is telling us that we haven't yet "let go" though we have convinced our conscious minds we have....thus creating tension from "clinging".  It may tell us we are still struggling and resisting internally. It may be telling us that we are not as truly "peaceful" as we seem to be. It may tell us that there is some trauma still stuck within and it needs help in getting it out.

Whatever the lesson...we need to listen!

The body, like the mind, is just a tool for communication.  We definitely do not want to get lost in it but it would be helpful if we listened to it ...a little more than we do.

All is well.