Dear Body

On living inside the body and listening to her story

“You get a feeling when you look back on life that that’s all God really wants from us, to live inside the body [God] made and enjoy the story.” ~Donald Miller

Hello Readers,

This body would like a word.

Living inside the body God made has been difficult over the past few years. First came the nervous system dysregulation, the extreme anxiety, and the panic attacks that seemingly arrived out of nowhere. Therapy quickly disabused me of that belief, but in the early days, I was blindsided.

Then there was the inability to run (a cornerstone of my physical and mental well-being), the foot surgery, and the resulting cascade of issues stemming from my gimpy appendage.

In the past two weeks alone, I was diagnosed with a bone bruise and spur on my foot, achilles tendonitis, an ongoing case of frozen shoulder (20 months and counting), and the big whammy—a herniated disc with sciatica all the way to my toes. I can’t even begin to worry about the weird benign bone tumor they found in my left shin. I’m just going to trust the doctor on the “benign-ness” of this one.

Pardon the laundry list of ailments. My doctor tells me these are still “young people problems” as if preparing me for the inevitable decline in old age. But I need to scribble this here to remind myself that this is not an overexaggeration or a figment of my imagination. Neither is your pain, your limitation, your dysregulation. It is real: We live in bodies, and we alone know what it’s like to live inside our skin with our particular set of aches, pains, and diagnoses. We have the MRI results, the chronicled years of journal entries, and many years of embodied living to show for it.

This is why we live attentive to more than just our inner landscape. The body, more than any other part of us, reveals our story.

Here is part of my story—my body hurts, she’s limited in ways that frustrate me, and she still wades in dysregulated waters too often for my liking. This is hard and yet, as KJ Ramsey writes, “This is a good body”. She is good, even when I want her to tell me a different story.

I ask her:

Dear Body, would you tell me a tale of strength, of vitality, of uninhibited movement, of energy? Would you sing me to sleep with lullabies of safety, of systemic softness, of trust for the story we’re living and breathing?

She replies that ours is not a tale of triumph, ours is a tale of tenderness. Of turning towards one another. Of noticing small signals and acting upon them with care. Ours is a story of nurturing what has been neglected.

I respond back.

Dear Body, I hear you say tenderness over triumph, nurture over neglect. So let me mother you. Let me nurture you by receiving your story, painful as it is. Let me love you with rest, and doctor’s visits, and needles, and nature, and prayer, and gentle movement, and a responsiveness that shows my growing trust in the story you're telling me.

She blesses me back by responding to my ministrations with a sigh of relief.

Dear Body, I bless you with gentleness. I bless you with my attention. I bless where your pain meets the story of our living. I bless you with hope for healing.

She responds with a softening.

The story continues.

If you’re reading this in email, would you consider tapping the ♡ at the bottom or top of this email or sharing it with your online friends? Thanks for taking one small, kind action to help others find my work.

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A Reflective Practice:

Here are two practices for you this week. Choose what serves you best:

1. Write yourself a Dear Body love letter and listen for your body’s response.

OR

2. Consider this imaginative prayer exercise I found buried in my journal from a few years ago.

Meditate for a moment or two on Christ as the embodiment of healing.

Christ is healing, healing is Christ.

Imagine Jesus’ healing touch as he takes your hands in his and blesses them.

What does he say about your hands and all they have carried?

Move through each part of your body that needs a touch and a blessing.

Imagine Jesus touching your head, your heart, your belly, your back, your feet.

What blessing does he impart to each part of you?

What goodness lingers from his touch and his blessing?