All of life happens through our body.
But we forget this for most of the time. We ignore, override, punish, medicate, push and dominate our very own body.
However, becoming ill; having an accident or suffering with a long-term, chronic condition, brings us sharply into direct contact with our body.
We are forced to turn towards our poor, put-upon and neglected body and start the gradual and often difficult process of learning how to love our own body at last.
When we are suddenly laid up with an injury, or diagnosed with an illness, or adapting to living with a chronic condition, then we forced to greatly adjust our attitude. To learn to care for our body, as we would a beloved animal, small child, partner or friend; none of which we tend to usually do towards our own flesh and bone.
After a lifetime of being taught to ignore, abandon and punish our body by our family, culture and society, now through life’s challenges, we have to learn anew what it means to really care for ourselves and begin to nourish our body with tenderness, love and compassion.
Often for women, the wound in their attitude towards their own body comes from how they experienced their mother and her relationship both to her own body and our small infant body. As women we also collectively experience the deep and historical wounds of living in a patriarchal culture for centuries. The wound done to the feminine body is enormous and we all feel that at a deep unconscious level, and it shapes our attitude and behaviours with regards to our own and others’ bodies. And if we’re not careful we pass on this heritage on to our own children.
Part of learning to care for our body with love and compassion involves transmuting our anger and frustration with our body; sometime we even feel hatred for it for causing us pain and limiting our dreams and goals. We often have to go through a process of feeling anger, sadness, grief and even depression, as we confront the reality of what it means to live in a body.
Jungian analyst and author Marion Woodman says simply: “To live in a body is to suffer”.
During such times, it becomes abundantly clear that we can no longer retreat to the safety of living purely in the mind.
Now we HAVE to inhabit our body and we HAVE to develop a compassionate response towards our body if we are going to come through the challenge and help our body to recover or adjust. We need to do this to maintain our centre as we enter into a deeper relationship to our own body.
Woodman also says: “Often we listen to a cat with more precision than we listen to our body. We cherish the cat. It purrs. Our body may have to release a scream, a symptom, to be heard by us at all. Too often, our soul can find no other way to be heard.” Marion Woodman, from: 'Coming Home to Myself'.
This is definitely a slow, gradual learning process, not something that just suddenly happens and sticks. We have a lifetime and generations of loathing for the flesh to heal and overcome. So if this is part of your journey, please be gentle with yourself as you start to explore a brand new way of being with and loving your body.
Like any true relationship, mostly our body is simply crying out for our attention and presence, for our kindness, gentle touch, to listen to our body and let it take the lead for a change. To humble our ego and desires so that we include our body in our decision making and listen deeply to its needs and limitations. To go as slowly and as carefully as we need to. To say no to that which makes our body brace in fear and to learn to create a life which both honours and involves the wisdom and beauty of the only body we will ever have in this lifetime.
It’s a long relationship, the longest we will ever have, so it surely behoves us to be as devoted as we can be to our wondrous, amazing body.
©Angela Dunning
Image by Daniel Requena Lambert, licensed via Shutterstock.
You can read more articles on the body below:
https://www.buymeacoffee.com/angeladunning/the-wisdom-the-body