Body

For the first 30 yrs of my life I lived in my head: it was safe and predictable in the domain of my recurrent thoughts and detailed analytics. My body was a hardware, a machine that sustained my life, aka my head. All the care I gave to it was aimed at having it look good for other people. I showered with the same purpose as I washed clothes, put lotion on with the same intention that shirts got ironed. I lost weight to trim off inches to fit better in the society’s box of a beautiful woman. 

Accordingly, I saw myself in the mirror as people see parts of your outfit. I scrutinized my face, my breasts, my butt, arms, stomach separately, and was convinced I needed and could change and improve them. At 13 I stuffed my bra with cotton balls; at 19 I massaged my thighs “cellulite” with a wooden brush till bruising; at 23 after giving birth I willed myself into sit ups between breastfeeding sessions.

When I was 29, one very small conversation put things into perspective. “You know your back is just skin on ribs,” said a girlfriend, as she was giving me a back massage. I was very pleased: “Thank you!” – “Oh no, that’s not a very good thing. Have you seen old women with hunched backs?” Images entered my imagination, but I could not understand the connection until my friend spelled it out. 

Muscles had always been about beauty for me, and had to be “feminine”: a flat stomach, a big butt, no biceps. Health?

The haunting image of an old hunchback Olga, along with a desperate desire to survive zombie or techno apocalypses (you never know), got me into the gym. To my utter surprise I loved weight training! It wasn’t even about the ease of squatting in front of the bottom fridge shelf and my even breathing after climbing a few flights of stairs to start a class. Not even about all the extra energy my growing muscles produced that I got to spend to be productive or actively relax. It was the feeling of happiness and a fuller life. 

But it wasn’t until I started doing yoga that I learned an advanced lesson on health: I am my body.

It was the first time I ever tried it after overdoing it at the gym and turning my body into an inflexible hardware with grunting noises at movement. Helpfully, YouTube suggested yin yoga stretches, and there I was folding while hinging at my hips in my first pigeon pose ever, to stretch my strained leg muscles. I felt my breath traveling up and down my spine, and the pleasant pain in my hip flexors and hamstrings was promising sweet relief and relaxation. My mind blended with the body. I was whole, grounded, and I was hearing my body. 

Mind

So I finally got it: to get your muscles strong, you lift weights, and to get them flexible – you do stretching and yoga (and yoga wins every. single. time.). You breathe through the tension and pain, you trust the body without pushing or forcing anything. You become strong, flexible, resilient. 

A couple of years ago I read an article about people’s nervous systems after certain psychological life experiences: sickness, breakup, death, betrayal, abuse, etc. When a person survives a traumatic event, it makes them strong, very strong; they grow a shell that makes the mind hard and stiff in its beliefs and thoughts. Any movement away from that brings pain, and no growth is possible from that place. 

The way the article described this strength felt so familiar… and it hit me – this is what I felt when I overdid my leg day. If only there was a mind/nervous system yoga practice to stretch and move, to allow some blood flow and relaxation.

I kept thinking about it, and the muscle metaphor just makes so much sense – I am my mind after all. In the very same way I am my body. And both of them are not really as separate as I was used to thinking. Bear with me for a minute:

Weight training is stressful for the body; traumatic events are stressful for the nervous system. They both make us strong but hardened and stiff. 

To relax my body and be flexible, I do yoga and breathe through the pain trusting my body through the poses. To relax my nervous system and have a flexible mind, I do vulnerability and express authentically through the fear and pain trusting myself through the experience.

This post is how I choose to practice today, breathing into the fear and expressing myself authentically. I trust that this exercise of sharing vulnerably will bring me the relaxation my mind craves and deserves.