This week in Year of Inquiry, we started our Month #7 together on a very profound topic: the body.
The body brings so much stress and painful thinking, it seems.
It gets sick, gets hurt, gets old. We have thoughts and beliefs about what it can give us (a partner, love, pleasure, attraction). We have beliefs about what could be taken away, or what we might lose.
In many ways, the body gives us every single kind of stressful possibility we could ever believe in about the universe and about life (and death). The body can be threatened, harmed, or gone.
There seems to be a really clear list of pros and cons about the body, right?
Pro: vitality, energy, youth, beauty, athleticism, skill, strength, health, zest
Con: slow, lethargic, old, ugly, bumbling, ungraceful, weak, sick, decay
I’m in favor of the Pro List! I hate the Con List!
The thing is, when you believe these without a single question about whether they’re true….you can live an entire life on planet earth trying to manipulate, push, press on, get, grab and demand the Pro List.
Anti-aging programs, special fitness regimes, the right fashion, face-lifts, surgery, gym workouts, control, willpower, diets, money spent, fear, exhaustion, fighting.
I need to have the “Pro” list of things at all times, or at least die trying.
How do you react, though, when you believe you must do everything you possibly can to remain….healthy and alive and attractive?
Oy.
Very anxious.
Upset when looking in the mirror and seeing wrinkles, or flab, or cellulite, or pimples, or the “wrong” hair, race, age, gender.
Horribly frightened when getting a diagnosis of cancer, or another disease, or when I have an accident and lose an arm, or break an ankle.
These things happen constantly in the world, in life, and yet we freak out like they aren’t supposed to happen, like we’re SHOCKED.
I’ll never forget the moment when I came back to the doctor to get my biopsy stitches removed. Only four. It was a small weird looking bump on my thigh. I hardly thought about it for the week I had to wait for results.
But the doctor came in and removed the stitches and said “looks like it’s healing well. How about we talk about this after you get dressed again? I’ll come back in just a few minutes.”
Wait.
We have to “talk” about this?
A massive shot of adrenaline coursed through my system. Could this be cancer or something? What’s going on? Brain kicked into gear, pulling on pants very fast, opening the door to say “OK, I’m ready!” Heart racing as I hear the doctor’s steps return down the hall and the sound of the clunk of her grabbing my chart out of the wall-holder again.
The bump we biopsied was actually a cancerous tumor. A sarcoma. You’ll need to get the whole thing removed.
Now, this wasn’t that big of a deal in so many ways. I had surgery during only 2 hours, in a day clinic not a hospital, and had 50 stitches this time. But it was the kind of cancer, they reported, that rarely if ever moves through the rest of the body. In other words, the whole thing got chopped out, and it was over. I told people I had a fight with a pirate.
Except…..in the mind, of course.
In the mind, I went through the surgery about 148 times, give or take a few. Scenes would flash in my head: smoke rising from the devices they use to stop the bleeding, feeling the stings of many numbing injections with huge needles into the thigh, hearing the voices of the surgeon and nurses, looking up at the dotted ceiling, my mom coming in to help me walk out at the end with a completely numb leg.
Flash, flash, flash. Like lightbulbs going off repeating the events, over and over.
How did I react with the belief I need the PRO List in order to be happy, when this is not on the Pro List….this is on the Con List?
Angry. Frightened. Wondering how much more time I have. Wondering what age I’ll die at. Wondering if I’ll get cancer again, only worse. Thinking I should eat more broccoli.
Some people report when they get “bad” news of any kind in this body department, they prefer to hide. Not only do I need to survive, but I need to do it looking good, so if I can’t look good or calm or easy-going or peaceful, I’ll stay home!
So who would you actually be, without the belief you need it to be any kind of way in this body, in order to be happy?
Wait. What the….? You mean….?
Yes.
What if you really did not need it to be any other way that it is, in order to be happy?
What if….and this is really getting into wild uncharted territory….what if what was happening, was actually offering something incredible for my development, or my awareness?
What if what was happening was….interesting, good, had a benefit, or an advantage?
I’ve had the privilege of doing The Work with people from time to time on cancer or other terminal or difficult diseases.
They are incredible people. They can sit with their bodies, as they are, and open themselves up to wondering who they’d be without their stressful thoughts, their war, against cancer.
What if no war was necessary?
I noticed I still had the tumor cut out. Bye bye.
But there’s this strange feeling of excitement about watching this body and this life handle it. Not collapse, or remain terrified every moment of the day. Even with 148 reviews of the operation. Those reviews faded away, and vanished, with The Work.
As the Year of Inquiry group started this month of work on The Body, people had such magnificent worksheets to begin their investigations: Men don’t like women who are fat, They are threatening me because of race, The crick in my neck ALWAYS hurts.
Wow.
Turning the thought around: Having the body be like the PRO list is not required for happiness, or peace.
How could this be just as true, or truer?
Well, I’ve had many happy moments since my tumor got cut off. LOL. And my skin is getting more wrinkling every day, and I injured myself badly several years ago, my back aches sometimes, and my right toe is going hammerhead….but I can find how wonderful this all is. I barely think about any of this.
I don’t have to stay here on planet earth forever. This is temporary. I’ll move along at some point, like everyone else.
I’ve slowed down. I don’t feel the need to go running for miles everyday like I once did. I have time for meditation.
These challenges gave me the invitation to surrender, to shift something at a profoundly deep level.
As one inquirer recently shared with me, who has stage 4 cancer, there is nothing in this world or lifetime that would be more perfect for her for teaching her to open her hands in gratitude, and letting go of control, than having cancer.
Amazing. Amazing.
“Use your imagination to give yourself a glimpse of who or what you would be without this thought. Don’t look for a better thought to substitute for the painful one. Just live for awhile in the space that opens up when you view your situation without the old thought. What would that be like?” ~ Byron Katie in I Need You Love–Is That True?
Much love,
Grace