Do I love my body?
Do I trust it implicitly?
Do I listen to it when it speaks to me?
Do I do what it tells me to do every single time?
Do I know how to listen to it? Or have I forgotten how to do that?
These are the questions that bubbled up for me after an intense and powerful experience this morning, as I sat in my sun-kissed balcony, meditating on my body. As the morning rays bathed my body, I felt a strange and different warmth envelop me, slowly rising within and stripping me of everything and filling me up with a warm, soothing light. With the rising wave came a flood of tears that wouldn't stop, and a feeling of immense gratitude and grace. Visions of some past experiences flashed by like a movie, as I bowed down - my body folded in prayer.
The past week has been a challenging week for me in many ways, and also illuminating. It has been a time of being with my body completely and trying to listen to what it was telling me. It was crying for attention. And this time the cry was too loud for me to ignore. To me, it was like the cry of a child that gets louder because you simply haven't paid attention to it earlier. It was a cry asking me to listen to it in a different way - the way it wanted to be listened to.
Disease and Dislike
After more than a year of giving up using an inhaler for my wheezing 'attacks' that have plagued me for over a decade (except this last year, when I have had absolutely no episodes of wheezing), it came back this week to haunt me and bring up all those old fears of disease and death that lurked inside me somewhere. Every night this past week, I was unable to sleep because I had difficulty breathing. It was as if my breath was getting stuck, unable to get out to where it wanted to flow. And the air outside that was wanting to rush in to nourish my body, was not being allowed to enter. There was something stopping the flow. And I didn't know what it was.
My earlier response would have been to do something immediately to feel okay - to sit up with a stack of pillows behind me, or just go and take a puff of that medicine (which I detested taking, but still did) out of sheer helplessness, and a terror that I might just die. Wheezing can do that to you. Because you just cannot breathe freely. Every time I get a wheezing attack I feel as if I have been pushed to a corner from where I cannot escape...as if someone is bearing down on me with a huge heavy plastic bag over my face that I cannot pull away however much I want to. I feel like I am going to stop breathing. But that does not happen. Nor am I able to breathe like I usually do. I feel like I am hanging helplessly from the edge of a cliff, from a noose that gets tighter and tighter, leaving me tantalizingly close to both life and death. It feels like I am stuck in a quagmire of utter helplessness.....and there is just no letting up. The only place to be in was
now, but that is exactly where I didn't want to be, because it was so terrifying.
But this time I didn't want to act out of helplessness and fear, nor did I want to stay with it out of a stubbornness of wanting to fight back, like I usually would have. And so I just let it be. I stayed with the breathlessness, I tossed and turned every few minutes, watching my breath and what was happening to it. I just let it be, without trying to control it. When it was shallow, I stayed with it without thinking I had to make it deeper. When it started getting better and deeper, I stayed with that too. And slowly it settled down and I fell asleep relieved and exhausted. It was a new experience for me, but it felt good. I was able to breathe better. I felt more in touch with my body.
The other thing that was bothersome was a radiating pain that I had from my neck down to the middle of my back and to my shoulders. It was bothersome enough to keep me from my daily chores and things I loved to do. I couldn't sit or stand for long. The only comforting position was to lie flat on my back with my knees folded up. So every time this pain showed up, I left what I was doing to go and rest my back. It was tough to manage alone, but my son was a great help with his little loving ways and thoughtfulness. To be loved and cared for when you least expect it has a special joy. It warmed and melted my heart.
My father-in-law had sent me some special oil, which gave me relief. But as I was applying it and massaging my own back, I felt a lump on one side. I remembered my husband telling me about it long ago when he was massaging my back. I had forgotten about it. But now, with my other problems looming large, this discovery startled me; it terrified me. My mind immediately went into overdrive. Memories of my mother in hospital with cancer flashed through my mind.
Ah! It was that old 'friend' again visiting. A 'friend' I didn't like. A 'friend' I wanted to close the door on soon. He was too dark, too fearsome, too powerful for me to manage and stay with. I could never look him in the eye. But this time I at least tried.
Yes....the dreaded fear of cancer. I feel a lump in my throat as I say this. And yet I feel a sense of freedom as I say the word. Yes, it is but a word....a word that has gripped our world and lives in so many ways today....it is all over the place, and yet, some people like me fear to even say it. But not anymore though.
I was scared that the lump I felt could be a sign of cancer. Cancer meant pain and physical pain was something I dreaded - I have a very low threshold for pain. I thought of my mother and all the suffering she went through when she had cancer of the breast and uterus some years ago. She had a mastectomy and hysterectomy and quite a huge loss of self-image as a woman I think. I didn't want that. Not for myself. It was too painful. But what the hell? Do I have a choice? Does life give me a choice?
My whole body was suddenly awash with so many emotions and memories. All the memories of pain tucked away somewhere in some little corner of that brain. And I cried. I felt guilt for all those times when I had 'abused' my body, both knowingly and unknowingly. A heaviness filled me, like a heavy iron chain bound to my body that I was dragging along. I felt sadness for not loving it fully, unconditionally, when it had given me so much. I felt the pain of not trusting it and not listening to it. It was a pain of separation - like the umbilical cord between my body and me was cut off. I didn't know my own body anymore. It was like a stranger to me. I had not loved it enough. I had not 'lived' in it enough. That was how I had abused it.
I recalled how I was as a little girl. I used to have an allergic reaction to mosquito bites. Every time a mosquito bit me, I would scratch the place and it would fester, get filled with pus, and I would have very high fever. Most often these blisters would erupt at the joints. They were so painful - as if someone had drilled a screw into that part. I could barely move my hand or leg, and yet I had to go to school. I felt ashamed to go to school like that, with band aids and festering blisters that would suddenly pop and leak pus and blood onto my white socks. I hated the bitter ayurvedic medicine I had to take for that. The doctor said that I had 'bad' blood and all the toxins had to be flushed out. I never really understood how anyone could have 'bad blood'.
I remember the stinky cod-liver oil capsules I had to swallow, which would always get stuck at the back of my tongue, leaving that horrid after-taste. And the bottles and bottles of iron tonic I had that made me feel like I had swallowed a bag of rusty nails. The egg-flip that I was forced to have, which made me puke my insides out. The paste of curd, gram flour and turmeric that I had to apply on my body every other day to lighten my many scars, because my grandmother told me that it would not look 'nice' like that. That being a girl, I should have flawless skin. Yet that was one thing which I did not have and still don't. I was very conscious of that. I wanted to hide those scars. I liked to keep my arms and legs covered as much as possible, so no one would see them. I wished them away. I did not love them. 'They shouldn't belong to me'.
A year or so before we decided to get married, I coughed up some blood one morning. I had been feeling a little feverish, unwell and very exhausted for some time, before that happened. At that time I was working and completely immersed in my career as a teacher of kids with special needs. I loved my job. It was more than a job to me. It had given me back my life and given space for the flow of my passion, after a long tryst with deep depression. This episode shattered all that for me in one stroke. I told my parents, who took me to our family physician. He did a few tests and I was diagnosed with tuberculosis of the lungs. I had to be on medication for almost a year. My father told me how TB was often associated with HIV and how many considered it taboo to even speak about. I was shit scared and completely pissed off with Life. Why did this have to happen now? How did I land up with this? Why did it have to spoil all the fun and happiness that I was just beginning to dip into? I didn't want to quit working, but I was too exhausted to be able to cope. I spoke to our Director, who agreed that I should take a break from work. That was the first of many breaks and I am grateful to have been given that space. I recouped slowly, our wedding plans got postponed, and I rejoined work after more than a year.
As my mother went in for surgery, I remember the conversation my father and I had about breasts and how much it meant to women. I wondered how I would feel if my breasts were removed. I shuddered at the thought of that. I grew up as a coy teenager with tiny breasts, often ogling at women and friends with large ones, and padding up my own in some unobtrusive ways, to hide my nipples and make my breasts look a bit larger than they were. Appearances were so important. And yet in some other ways I couldn't be bothered with appearances. I was caught for a long time between these two contradictory opinions. I never had an interest in dressing up or jewellery like my friends did. And yet I didn't love my breasts and my body for how they were. I don't know why. And there was no one to talk to about all this. Marriage and sex opened me up in many ways to my own body. There was finally someone who loved me for who I was, more than even I did. There was someone who found me beautiful even when I didn't see it or feel it. I suddenly realised that a body with all its many scars and blemishes could still bring pleasure to someone else and me. Just like a tree with its incongruous branches, scars and twisty knots. That's probably what made every bark and trunk a work of art. Just like my body. That was how I started loving my body......by
not loving it.
Childbirth
Childbirth was a scary thought even after marriage. For many years I was not emotionally and physically ready for it. Yet, when I was ready in some ways, I was not ready fully to face the pain. I was really scared about the pain and unsure if I could withstand it. I realised much later that it was simply because I could not trust my body. I did all I could in my own ways, during my pregnancy, to try and make sure the delivery would be easy and less painful. I squatted and mopped the floor everyday until the very end, I used only the Indian toilet, did the pelvic exercises and back exercises diligently, and went for long walks all by myself. But I did all that out of fear - the fear of pain. So although all of that helped me deal with the pain, it did not let me enjoy the process of bringing a new life into this world.
On the D-day, when we went to the hospital in the early hours of the morning on July 1st, I went in with a lot of fear. Terror. An overwhelming fear of what would happen. A fear of the pain. It haunted me and gripped me. They made me lie down and periodically checked me. I detested that. I detested the touch of those hands that groped and showered mouthfuls at me for not cooperating with them. I hated myself and my sensitivity to pain. I hated being the odd-one-out who did not know how to handle herself during childbirth. But I could not also cry. It would affect the baby. That was what I was told by everyone and that was what I had read. And so I swallowed my tears and tried to put on a brave front.
Then I waited with my mother in a room they had given us. After a while they gave me a pill to induce labour as my waters had burst and there was no sign of any contraction. Soon, the contractions started and how! And for the first time, I instinctively squatted. I remember that distinctly. That was the most comfortable position and made the pain bearable. My body knew what to do! And yet, I was still so consumed by the fear of pain and how it was going to be. I remember calling my grandmother as I was going through it all, to ask her how she had delivered nine babies! And she very matter-of-factly told me: "There is nothing you can do no? You just have to go through it." Yes. That was it. There is nothing you can do about pain. It is just there. With you. You just have to stay with it and go through it. That's all.
When they wheeled me into the OT, there was some lovely instrumental music
playing and my husband was there by my side, as tentative as I was. I was put
on the bed and my feet were strapped. I remember asking the doctor about it and her telling me that that was the only position they could use to see the baby
coming out. I did not have the strength to refute her. But I have never felt
more helpless in my life. I knew squatting had helped with the pain. But I had no way of
doing that now. I screamed, dug my nails into my husband’s palm, cried and
shook my whole body. I was angry and helpless. I wanted to kick them all away
and set myself free. I wanted to touch my body. I wanted to hold it. I wanted
to love it. But I was strapped – helpless like a little lamb under a butcher’s
axe. Only here, the ‘butcher’ was trying to help me in the best way she knew. In a
way that I did not want. And I did not know any better. Rather, I did not know
that my body knew of a better way. The pain was simply unbearable. And when it was unbearable and I
asked for an epidural, the doctor told me that it was too late for that. And so
I heaved and breathed hard just like she asked me to, hoping that all would be
well. And it was. Three hours of labour, no pain relief and Raghav was out. The
most beautiful gift I could ever hope to have!
I hadn’t trusted my body, and
yet it had trusted me. Life trusted me....trusted that I could be a mother to
my beautiful son.
My body had given me the most beautiful gift of joy through
all that pain. And yet, I didn’t pause to thank it. Life moved on too quickly, because I didn't pause or stop.
There was just so much to do....
Fear of Being Alone and Uncared for
Some years ago, after my mother’s surgery, I landed up with a virulent
attack of chickenpox. For almost a month, I kept myself to one room in the
house, away from everyone. It was a month of utter pain and loneliness. I had
blisters all over. It didn’t spare any part of my
body, not even my genitals. I screamed in
pain over the phone to my mother-in-law one day, telling her how I wanted to
die. Neem leaves and warm water were my only companions. I bathed whenever I felt
like. That was my salvation. I refused to get bogged down by old beliefs that spoke of bathing only after a certain number of days. I listened to
my body and did what felt good inside.
I didn’t want my parents or anyone else to come
and see me. I saw my
husband and son briefly from the door of my room every day because I didn't want my son to get it from me. That was when the
pain of being sick and lonely hit me. It was painful to not have anyone next to
me to even hold my hand or comfort me. There was just nothing I could do about it.
Nothing that they could do about it. We had to just go through it. And this was
my journey – alone. Whether I liked it or not. I had to stay with my fear of
being alone and uncared for, although inside I so wanted to be nurtured and cared for.
Fear of Physical Pain and Death
I have spent a good part of my life in hospitals, caring for my father many
times over many many years, and then my mother. I have seen him walk to the door of
death so many times, and then walk back a new man each time.
Every time with a renewed vigour and a love for his work and life. I have seen
him with tubes and machines, his head dropping off before my eyes, staring at
the shadow of death on his face, standing completely helpless....unable to do
anything about the suffering he had to go through. Although I know that it has shaped me and made me see my strength and courage to stand alone and face adversity, I often wonder if all this
has also contributed to my fear of disease and death or helped me in anyway. Maybe I
will know some day.
But what I do know now is that I don’t want to go to or die in
a hospital. That is a huge fear that I have. The fear of being helplessly strapped
to a bed and to machines. I want to die out in the open under the sky, like the
dogs we had, who knew when they were dying and always managed to haul
themselves out of the house for a breath of fresh air. Yes. That’s how I want to die. But will I have a
choice?
Pain has been an integral part of my life journey, just like it is for everyone that walks this planet. The
fear of pain has been a huge obstacle for me to love my body and trust it. But
today, I am more open to staying with physical pain than I was before. I am
learning all over again to trust my body and listen to it. I am learning to
love those parts of my body that I haven’t loved enough. I am learning to trust
life just like she has trusted me so far.
A Thanksgiving
Today I give thanks to my body, which
has given me a form, a life - to live and die for.
I haven’t spent enough time
thinking about and loving my body as I have thought about my mind and heart. Yeah,
they are the more snazzy parts of ‘me’. But where would they be without this
magnificent creation and home, that is my body?
And so I write today to heal myself. I write today to shout out my fears
loud and clear. Because that is the only way I know to face them head on. I
don’t want to hush them up and let them spawn into
huge monsters that will overpower me some day.
I want to seek them out like friends from the many dark recesses
inside where they have a knack of hiding in, by calling out to them joyously and saying:
“Hey I found you guys out!”
As I write this today, I am in a very different space than where I was many
years ago. Today, even if only for a moment, I know I have hugged my body with love - not for
the warm heart that it encases, or the witty mind that can play with words and
thoughts to create beautiful stories, but for the flesh, blood and bones that
give me a shape and form, the many organs that work like an orchestra to create
this truly amazing work of art, and to the breath that gives me this wonderful life.
Today is my day of thanksgiving for a journey within - to start learning how to
love and trust my body all over again.
P.S.
This post was written more than five months ago, when the journey within took on a serious turn.
Today, when I re-read it all, I can see what a different and more expansive, comfortable space I am in inside my body now.
Yes, I
am my body now.
And I have loved getting into it.
It has been the most beautiful pilgrimage I have been on....
....to the most sacred places I have ever known.
