My voice teacher got laryngitis this week. It was the first anniversary of her father's death, and I've noticed that the body knows. When the mind wants to skim over unpleasantness or repeat the mantra "Everything is fine" our bodies will poke us in the stomach or cause fatigue or give us a flu. Slow down, the body tells us, feel this. Stop and feel this. My body knows the anniversary of every important death I've witnessed. I'll be thinking I need to check my thyroid level, but no, it's the day of my mother's funeral. I'll feel a vague malaise, then realize an anniversary of my first husband's death is coming up in a few days. The body remembers.
Listening to my body has been a difficult practice for me. I was raised to be stoic. No "whining" as my father would call it. He, himself refused to go to Arizona for three months and heal his lungs after pneumonia, and it caused him to have asthma the rest of his life. He thought he'd lose out if he was off work that long. So he struggled with breathing, our most basic of functions, forever after.
When my parents died within ten months of each other, I promptly got mononucleosis. I dragged around like a limp kitten for months, and awoke every night a two am in a fever. I was sad, and I wanted someone to help me weather the sadness, but I had four kids and I thought I needed to buck up. The body has a great sense of humor. Let's see who's in charge here - you won't stop, well, we'll see about that.
No I listen carefully, and if I'm about to doze in the middle of a task, I doze. If I don't feel like eating, I don't. I check in with the vessel that houses whatever being I am, and make sure it wants to come along for the ride. If it needs to be parked in the garage, so be it. The garage is nice and safe and dark and cosy. Respect the body. We really need its complete cooperation.
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