Finding peace, being peace, ohmmmmm. I’m in a silly mood today. I realize I’m embarking on part 2 of this issue I’ve decided to dissect and the focus is the body. Knowing the body’s language.
I have CFS/CFIDS, perhaps this strips me naked in front of all the spiritual wizards. Insta-judgers could decide I’ve not evolved enough spiritually and this is why I run a low grade fever almost every day when CFIDS has decided to take me for a ride. All I can do is my best and never give up (not for long, anyway).
At this moment, my body is speaking many things at once. The top of my head? I feel it as almost sore, headachey. But not quite. I’m probably thinking too much. ; ) My eyes are a little tired. My mouth is warm from sipping Tulsi Tea. My throat is sore, still. My tummy is quizzical, unsure if food is necessary even at noon. My neck is happy. My ghostbladder occasionally kicks me (Gallbladder is GONE but the ghost of it continues to remind me there were psychospiritual issues that orphaned me from a vital organ.) but is being quiet today. My gut is quiet, peaceful (aren’t we all glad?). My muscles are all telling me that I did some T-Tapp again last night and that it feels good to be alive regardless of soreness. Even my toes are reporting the feel of the air around me. The soles of my feet. Wow. They are receptacles supreme. Through them I feel currents. Truly. If I relax into what they infuse, I feel waves of bliss run through my body, bypassing soreness and fever. Right now, there is no tension beyond what the body creates in natural use of herself. Years ago, a body check would always find me tightening my jaws. No more, not for many years now.
Why does anyof this matter? Because the whole body reports how a life is either a study in peace or not. Because I know personally from years of experience that when I come home to my body, to all the reports and whisperings, I move more deeply into awareness, an awareness that eventually moves me into secure self-acceptance and peace. No matter what is going on in my life. It brings me to steady composure, enabling me to access mental resources. It puts me in a place of being more authentic in the moment, more present and able to own my truth, my desires, my needs. When CFS is at its worst, it’s hard not to take leave from this body. But when I do dissociate, I spoonerize my words. Wife is leary (spoonerize that for the actual message) everywhere and zags overtake zigs, snarling my rhythm. Up is down. If I think about something that is going to happen tomorrow and you come up and ask me about something today, I may actually include the word “tomorrow” in my response to you. Bad moment! But it can quickly turn to rest when I bring myself into body awareness, to being-withness. So, the best days, the most “Ruth is here!” days are made by my coming home, to surrendering to the body and, to borrow from greatness in saying so, to life.
Alexander Lowen has insightful and beautiful things to say about this issue in his book, JOY – The Surrender to the Body and To Life. His book focuses on the many layers of healing made available through the simple process of getting in touch with the body. Take a look at this:
“Emotional health is the ability to accept reality and not run away from it. Our basic reality is our body. Our self is not an image in our brain but a real, living and pulsating organism. To know ourselves we have to feel our body. The loss of feeling in any part of the body is the loss of part of the self. Self-awareness, the first step in the therapeutic process of self-discovery, is the feeling of the body–the whole body, from head to toes.”
There are books upon books about the body’s language. When the gallbladder is ill, some say it means a person is failing to live personal truths. The year I lost my gallbladder, I had decided I could not continue to pretend to be okay with the tribe I depended on at the time. I had waited too long to make vital changes. But it could not be helped. Caroline Myss has great things to say about the body’s language.
So, surrender to the body…
“When every part of the body is charged and vibrant, we feel vibrantly alive and joyful. But for that to occur we need to surrender to the body and its feelings.
Surrender means letting the body become fully alive and free. It means allowing the involuntary processes of the body, like respiration, full freedom of action and not controlling them. The body is not a machine that one has to start or stop. It has a “mind” and knows what to do. In effect what we are surrendering is the illusion of the power of the mind.” A.L. JOY

The best place to begin awareness is with your breathing. But I’ll stop there. Stay tuned for the importance of acknowledging and working through (lifetime work) the injuries of the past that continue to visit today. It’s all connected. The body tells on our history (for some of us moreso than others.) as well as environmental influences. Sometimes we release the tension in our bodies by facing the hurts of the past with honesty, feeling and intent to heal.