My Body Holds The Score

Being selfless made me get sick; not selfless as in the act of service from a place of abundance (or at times necessity) but the compulsion to be selfless due to some kind of intergenerational trauma and dodgy cultural conditioning that I have to accommodate everybody I come into contact with at the expense of myself. Being this selfless creates a dark shadow self that can erupt; the kind of shadow demon that takes you on a road trip with an independent girlfriend and next thing you know you’re picking up hot hitch-hikers, robbing gas stations and driving off a cliff all whilst swigging on a bottle of Jack Daniels in cool shades (OK I just quoted Thelma and Louise but you know what I mean… besides my twenties are over, though they were never THAT exciting). Just to clarify by sick I mean adrenal fatigue, asthma, chronic anemia, extreme exhaustion, burn out, flooding and chronic vitamin D deficiency.

You can see why lots of women go off the rails in their forties and fifties heady with a new-found freedom, a second adolescence if you will. First time round we were let out of school and released, like wild horses bursting out of their gates in a race, onto horizons of possibilities. This second time round we have been released from the shackles of (some) responsibilities and societal expectations. Our souls are growing. The kids - if we have kids - are growing up, our lives are getting more freed up and we have ditched a lot of the insecurities that dogged us in our youth even though it can be a challenge to shed those identities, however toxic. It’s better the devil you know than the devil you don’t and all that. 

Now we don’t care so much what others think and we don’t have so much to prove. We have survived the mincemeat machine of motherhood if we are mothers. We are stronger now with more experience under our belt. We have weathered traumas, disappointments and disillusionment. It’s not so easy to pull the wool over our eyes. Freedom has been hard earned and we aren’t about to give it up easily without a fight. The main thing is we want to please and suit ourselves finally. No more putting OUR LIVES on hold. I have found this is a unanimous battle cry of women in this stage of life pretty much across the board. After years of minding people, caring about others feelings and lives you finally embrace your own. And though driving off into the sunset in a convertible sounds exceptionally appealing (after years of washing dishes and picking up dirty socks) it is probably not as easy as it sounds. Nothing ever is!

One of the reasons driving off into the sunset in a care-free convertible is not so easy, besides maybe not having the money to buy one in the first place or just being too damn tired to, is the issue of health. Something I have noticed with many of my friends at this juncture in their lives is that just as they reach some landmark which will mean more space and time for them that opens new opportunities – the kids are becoming more independent going off to secondary school or college or they leave a toxic relationship or marriage or they have a career change, for example – they are struck with an illness that floors them. Or they have gradually - or suddenly - become plagued by fatigue and peri-menopausal symptoms that obliterate their regular patterns and lives. Suddenly we are confronted with our past and how we treated ourselves. The chickens come home to roost, as they say, it’s pay day and this often happens unexpectedly. It is rather like when you prepare for giving birth for the first time, nothing can really prepare you for it. I started therapy at 40 to reflect on my past and deal with it but nothing prepared me for it when I got hit by what I shall call “the flood”.

I was hit with flooding and fatigue to end fatigues. Or perhaps I should call it blooding. It has been brutal and debilitating. I won’t bore you with the details, besides you can read all about it here in one of my previous blog posts https://madchicklit.blogspot.com/2019/06/the-descent-demons.html  All I can say is I became a CEO in Blood Management. I bled so much it was impressive.

This month I finally got round to seeing an osteopath after 2 years of going around the houses with doctors and medical people. This osteopath confirmed what I already knew but still it blew my mind. The power of our body’s intuition, our deep “knowing” that society with its’ demands and in some cases doctors steer us away from. We know. I know. I know I have been repressing stuff, putting off my life until tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow because as we all know, tomorrow never comes. Due to circumstance I had to repress a lot. We all have to. This is called reality, it’s called society, it’s called compromising and coexisting. Except that some people are existing more than us!! How long can our bodies and souls take it before they start to rebel? How long before they start sending us messages, loud and clear, that the body says NO. That, actually, we say No.

Incidentally this is probably one of the best lectures I've seen on the body saying NO; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6IL8WVyMMs&t=11s Watch it and set boundaries now!

Well I’ll tell you. It all kicks off just when you think you’ve got your stuff sorted! So unfair but it seems to unfold this way.

I went to the osteopath about my hip but she says it’s much deeper than that (though I do have a sore hip too). She is my witness. She tells me things I already know but now need to bring out into the light, not hold them inside like shameful secrets anymore. She told me I have a very old “fight, flight or freeze holding pattern” in my spleen, liver and kidneys. The “holding” has been so great over many years that the nerves into my womb and bowels have been blocked; hence problematic menstruation (like the endometriosis in my teens and the extreme flooding and ovarian cyst now) and constipation. They are so tightly constricted in a sac rather like the womb sac a baby forms in that they are causing all kinds of imbalances in my body. Eventually this becomes like a spiral, a pit that gets harder to get out of.

I am both relieved and saddened by the information I receive; relieved because I wasn’t imagining these things and saddened because I let it get to this stage before I cared enough to address the issue. But I tell myself now is the right time because I wasn’t ready till now. It is never too late. True healing can be done at any stage of life even on your death bed. My body is mirroring my mind. I have been told I have Complex PTSD and my body mirrors this. Basically my body also has Complex PTSD. The wisdom of all this both amazes and humbles me. I feel great gratitude to my body and I thank her. I am forming a deeper relationship with my body now; one that listens and honours her rather than abandoning myself to focus on others’ needs, desires, wants, demands etc.

Check out the wisdom and intelligence of the body and how nature adapts to it's environment. My fight, flight or freeze holding pattern was in my spleen, liver and kidneys. Emotionally the spleen “holds it all together”. I have often bemoaned how I “hold it all together” for others, park myself, become invisible and hold the space.

Emotionally the liver harbours resentments and anger. How could I possibly not feel resentment throughout life? Even if I did not admit it or consciously birth it, how can a woman not feel resentment in this culture? So much is expected of us that it is impossible. But we soldier on with brave faces and putting up and out. Plus we have to deal with the internal voices which can be cruel rather than kind. The thing to do is to turn my anger into positive action – exercise or a creative project I have always wanted to do or something healthy and transformative. But not sit on it and let it stagnate. It is also important to get support with deep-seated anger as you don’t want to take it out on nearest and dearest which is often how it happens. We are each responsible for our emotions and underneath rage is often grief and pain. It is best to navigate these waters with a professional and ask others around you for space if a lot is coming up.

Lastly, but by no means least, the kidneys. Emotionally the kidneys hold fear. Having survived terror states and general anxiety, existential angst and neurosis throughout my life I would say my kidneys have taken a pounding. The pattern with me is to just “get on with it” regardless of fear. Feel the fear and do it anyway. I treat fear like an annoying princess-y friend who is so high maintenance she makes your eyes roll to the back of your head. I am both brave and proud, perhaps a tough mix for my kidneys. For much of my life I have joked that I am Jane Wayne (John Wayne’s macho and emotionally retarded sister). I can tough things out that might make others’ toes curl. I push hard and I push through. I will go where others fear to tread. I will go anywhere but to my vulnerable place which is of course where I need to go. Speaking of vulnerability here is a must watch on it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCvmsMzlF7o 

I would rather saw my leg off than ask for help though in true complex, contrarian style I am both squeamish and terrified of getting sick and of death. I am psychologically brave despite feeling fear but physically I am a wimp when it comes to anything going wrong. Though I will rally if I have to, like the time I pierced my eyeball by accident with a gorse thorn and had to drive my car to the doctor’s with a bleeding eye or like the time I got my teeth drilled using no anesthetic (every time he hit a nerve I jumped out of the seat) or giving birth naturally for that matter.

I find it hard to receive because I can be deeply suspicious of why someone is giving me something in the first place and yet I love to give. I can be both naively trusting and open or distrustful and edging towards paranoia in certain situations. In saying that, I can surprise myself by being happily receptive if the energy feels right. My fear is to feel beholden or bound by someone and by duty. My fear is that if I receive from someone my self expression could be compromised. I have some anxiety around receiving but I am allowing myself to feel the fear and receive anyway! I always like to know where the Exit sign is then I can relax. I guess you could call me independent. I like to be respected as an autonomous person. I like to take things very, very slowly. I am not half a person, I am whole in myself. I am very tired of people crossing my boundaries. I am tired of people not knowing what boundaries are. I am tired of having to set them. I do not like to be “possessed” and neither do I like to “possess” someone. I like true freedom however painful that may be and I know it costs a lot. I have been quite uncompromising in my inner sanctum and that has made my life much more difficult in some ways. On the other hand I take great pride in this because like Frank, I did it my way! 

Mostly though, I feel like some kind of freak in that department because I do not seem to want what women are meant to want. I would like some love but just not to be dominated by that. I fought long and hard to get where I am today and I don’t want to compromise too much because it makes me feel uneasy, like I might lose my footing and never win back my own agency. I don’t want to end up some doormat. I don’t want to die for love. I’m not sixteen. Even then I did not want to die for love. Actually I wanted to go to the library and read about it without having to do it. It’s an awful effort having to actually do it. What can I say? I was an old lady trapped in a sixteen year old brunette bombshell. I have discovered that relationships are hard work for everybody; women or men.

My kidneys have taken a bashing from the “no nonsense” approach of Jane Wayne who is best exemplified by central protagonist Imperator Furiosa in Mad Max: Fury Road. That character basically sums me up. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkRM7-DjpR8 If I watch this movie again I must stop and think about how living life like Furiosa effects my poor exhausted kidneys not to mention my adrenals. Clearly I have been operating from my more masculine energies presumably because my feminine has not felt safe to emerge. I have been working with this for a few years now and gaining confidence in this area though. 

In kidneys there is kidney yin and kidney yang. Yin is female (receptive, passive)  and yang is male (giving, active). 

My body holds the score. There is a wealth of knowledge stored in our bodies. My next challenge is to listen to my body and honour her. This might mean admitting that I’m tired of holding it all together, I’m feeling resentful or I’m scared. I am scared of being controlled or devoured so I can avoid aspects of relationships. I am scared of other people’s needs because they may engulf me. I am afraid of being rejected due to my own needs. My need for space and freedom is so vast that I feel like no one will understand me or no one on earth could put up with me so I hide that side of myself like a shameful secret. However much I love solitude I love people too and so I will always need the acceptance of society and loved ones. As for approval, I can live without it now.

Now that I think of it, I always could. One day you wake up and realise you always knew you; you just abandoned you, neglected you, ignored you, silenced you or thought you were not what other people wanted so you changed you. But now you can reclaim, become, return or just love you as you are. Embrace you. Be you. 

Here is a beautiful quote about self-care to ponder on

“Self-care is often a very unbeautiful thing.

It is making a spreadsheet of your debt and enforcing a morning routine and cooking yourself healthy meals and no longer just running from your problems and calling the distraction a solution.

It is often doing the ugliest thing that you have to do, like sweat through another workout or tell a toxic friend you don’t want to see them anymore or get a second job so you can have a savings account or figure out a way to accept yourself so that you’re not constantly exhausted from trying to be everything, all the time and then needing to take deliberate, mandated breaks from living to do basic things like drop some oil into a bath and read Marie Claire and turn your phone off for the day.

A world in which self-care has to be such a trendy topic is a world that is sick. Self-care should not be something we resort to because we are so absolutely exhausted that we need some reprieve from our own relentless internal pressure.

True self-care is not salt baths and chocolate cake, it is making the choice to build a life you don’t need to regularly escape from.

And that often takes doing the thing you least want to do.

It often means looking your failures and disappointments square in the eye and re-strategizing. It is not satiating your immediate desires. It is letting go. It is choosing new. It is disappointing some people. It is making sacrifices for others. It is living a way that other people won’t, so maybe you can live in a way that other people can’t.

It is letting yourself be normal. Regular. Unexceptional. It is sometimes having a dirty kitchen and deciding your ultimate goal in life isn’t going to be having abs and keeping up with your fake friends. It is deciding how much of your anxiety comes from not actualizing your latent potential, and how much comes from the way you were being trained to think before you even knew what was happening.

If you find yourself having to regularly indulge in consumer self-care, it’s because you are disconnected from actual self-care, which has very little to do with “treating yourself” and a whole lot do with parenting yourself and making choices for your long-term wellness.

It is no longer using your hectic and unreasonable life as justification for self-sabotage in the form of liquor and procrastination. It is learning how to stop trying to “fix yourself” and start trying to take care of yourself… and maybe finding that taking care lovingly attends to a lot of the problems you were trying to fix in the first place.

It means being the hero of your life, not the victim. It means rewiring what you have until your everyday life isn’t something you need therapy to recover from. It is no longer choosing a life that looks good over a life that feels good. It is giving the hell up on some goals so you can care about others. It is being honest even if that means you aren’t universally liked. It is meeting your own needs so you aren’t anxious and dependent on other people.

It is becoming the person you know you want and are meant to be. Someone who knows that salt baths and chocolate cake are ways to enjoy life – not escape from it.”
-Brianna Wiest