What I learned from my body

You can't tell it that it's fat, ugly, or that you hate it and expected not to retaliate. You have to listen to your body, not suppress warning signs and expect all to be fine.

My first major lesson was in 2010. I was having chronic back pain that I blamed on a spinal fusion and severe headaches that I blamed on a stressful job. I was exhausted and at the end of my rope feeling extremely stressed. I blamed it on trying to raise three kids, my job, and a chronic pain condition. Who wouldn't feel like crap with all that going on.

It all changed the day I took one of the kids to our family doctor and he noticed that something was very wrong. He did a basic neurological exam and called the neurosurgeon he like best and got me an appointment for the next day. I went to the appointment and they did a CT scan and saw right away but I was in major trouble. They didn't understand how I was still walking. The bone graft from my spinal fusion has slipped and tore into my cerebral fluid column. I had a significant leak and the fluid was pooling at the base of my spine. That explains the severe headaches, back pain and the anxiety I was feeling. My body was screaming "Pay attention to me!" They said that if the bone graft had moved further I would've been paralyzed. I was in surgery within days and spent almost a month in a nursing home. The nerve damage was significant and I live with chronic nerve pain in varying degrees since then. You would think that I would form a great relationship with my body at this point. I did start to listen to the body's signs and have done my best to live a healthy life. 

Today, I got another wake up call. I have been experiencing hair loss, scalp tenderness, and sores. I went to the dermatologist who did a biopsy. This morning I went into the office for the results. It was a slap in the face to hear that I have an autoimmune dis-ease that leads to scarring of the skin where hair will not grow again. She said is in the very beginning phases and she thinks we can get the inflammation and pain under control. I was dumbstruck. Haven't I've been eating right, walking, losing weight, paying attention to the body? How did this happen?

Then it hit me, autoimmune disease is our essentially the body attacking itself. My body is attacking itself in a very noticeable way, through hair loss that could lead to baldness. My body was only doing what it had been told to do by me all these years. It was hating itself, destroying itself. How many times have I said "I hate my body", "I hate my hair", "I look ugly", "I'm fat". How many times have I verbally attacked myself for my looks? Is it that strange to think that the body decided to answer that call? It decided to do exactly what I've been saying. It was giving me a body to hate, hair to lose, and more reason to feel ugly. Make no mistake, the universe is always listening and responding and mirroring our thoughts.

I have to take a step back and really look at where these feelings of self hate started. Did it start when I gained so much weight with children? No, I think that was just a symptom. I think like most deep hurts, it started in my childhood. Maybe it was the feeling that only if I was thin and pretty what I be worthy of love. Maybe it was hearing my dad call my mom ugly during fights and she in turn would say similar things to yourself. Is this the legacy I too have left for my girls?

Has hearing me say that I hate myself set them up for a life of self depreciation? It's possible. All I can do now is heal that inner child, that beautiful girl with the big brown eyes who absorbed too much of others pain and then unleashed the fury on herself. All I can do now is set a new example for my children, one of self-love. 

For the past few years I have worked hard on loving myself and not accepting other peoples junk. I am no longer a doormat standing with open arms begging for love from others only to be used and hurt. I learned balance. I learned what I could give to others without losing self. I had finally found my voice. However, I didn't take that last step of self-love to the really important part, which is self acceptance. I needed to except myself for my flaws and still see beauty when I looked in the mirror. I needed to take that final step and silence those tapes running in my head and stop the negative self talk that has plagued me my whole life.

I know what the body will do when it feels unloved, unappreciated, now it's time to see how it will react to love, pure unconditional love and gratitude. Gratitude for all it has done to get me through a bad kidney in childhood, three hard pregnancies, three spinal surgeries and chronic pain. It has shouldered a great burden and it is now screaming "Enough! Love me, Accept me! Stop being so mean to me. I give you my All, just love me in return."

Thank you body,  I got the lesson. I am so very sorry for all the mean and hateful things I have said. I would never treat another person that way. When did it become okay to do it to you?

Healing is so hard, it comes in layers and I'm so grateful for the messages that are loud and clear.