Receiving love in the body

This week I have faced many frustrating moments with my body. When I went to the doctor about my shoulder tendonitis, which I thought was improving with physical therapy, I mentioned to him that I was hearing a clicking when I moved my arm a certain way. He proceeded to say that I most likely had a tear in the bicep tendon. I immediately asked if I should stop swimming and he said that I would probably be fine for now.

I left there completely discouraged. All I could think was that here I was facing another limitation. I couldn’t take a walk because of my toe tendonitis; I couldn’t swim because of my shoulder tendonitis; I wasn’t sleeping week because of my recurring sleep disorder. I had hit a wall. And the tears came showering down. I was facing more limitations, and that story was familiar from my childhood years with an alcoholic mother and nine siblings, to my young adult years of infertility and insomnia; to now the middle years, as my body was facing more overt physical limitations. I could feel the resistance, the anger, the frustrations, and the desire to be released from what felt like a cage. Before I knew it, my whole life was wrong, and I couldn’t get it right.

I still go to the gym, even if I can’t swim, and ride the stationary bike, which is torture for me since it’s so boring. But I still want to do some exercise and this is what I can do. After my doctor’s appointment, I went there, but I found myself in tears, tired and frustrated and not feeling well. At the sink, washing my hands, I bumped into a woman I have known there for years, and we began to talk. She shared some physical difficulties she had encountered over the years, and then said, “I have come to realize and appreciate all our bodies due for us. They work hard for us.”

Her comment struck me. Was I at all appreciating my body and how it was trying to heal? Or was I just angry and frustrated at it?

Someone suggested that I breathe love into my pain. I couldn’t do it. I was stuck. ‘What, love my body when it was giving me so much grief and trouble?’ I said to myself. Then last night, when I couldn’t sleep, I decided to try it. I put my mind and heart on my toe, on my knee, and on my shoulder, on the pain and discomfort I was feeling. Right away my body told me that I was always screaming at it.

I remembered earlier in the week, when a little girl spontaneously came up to me in the hallway outside the library door and just held onto me. She wanted a hug. I stood still, as she wrapped her little arms around me, and we were quiet together for a few minutes. I could feel her heart beating against my leg. I could still feel her pure desire to receive love. Then, I realized that my toe pain just wants me to hug it; my knee pain just wants me to be with it; and my shoulder wants my acceptance. Stop screaming at me, my body was saying to me. Love me. Hold me.

I was not in my parents’ home, with their harshness and impatience. I was in my own home. My body was my home. And I could treat my it with love, patience, and acceptance. I couldn’t get back to sleep, but rather than being angry at myself, I heard a voice saying, ‘I accept you.’

For today, I will not demand more of my body, but rather I will be with it in love. We are friends.

Meditation practice — take three breaths and calm the body and mind. Now put your awareness on an area in the body that is giving you pain. Breathe into it. Not trying to force it to change, but being with it right here, right now, how it is. Can you give it your love?