It was–almost–an out-of-body experience.
I was taking a slow walk in the Arizona sun during a season of intense stress. Some much-needed movement broke up the physical monotony of hours of work at my desk, and my body gradually unclenched itself. Relaxing in the warmth and rhythm of walking, I felt like I could exhale for the first time in weeks.
Suddenly, I “saw” myself from above: a tired yet determined woman, head down, arms swinging gently as she made her way home.
“Take care of her,” the Lord seemed to say.
Take care of her.
Tearing up, I knew immediately what He meant.
I had been neglecting myself for far too long, ignoring the lights on my physical dashboard as they blinked: low fuel, check engine. I knew I was driving myself into the ground but seemed unable to stop.
Operating, in many ways, as if I was paralytic, numb and unresponsive to what my body was desperately trying to tell me. I was “playing dead” like a frightened animal, thinking that if I ignored the warnings, the rest of me could carry on as usual.
It wasn’t working. I couldn’t just put the uncooperative parts of me into the closet “to deal with later.” Instead, the paralysis spread like the sickness it was, causing me to be on one hand immobilized with indecision and overwhelm, and on the other, careening toward a cliff while helplessly pumping a broken brake pedal.
I’d gotten into the habit of telling myself versions of “when this (whatever it was – a project, class, season, event, deadline) is over…”
When this is over, I will start exercising again.
When this is over, I’ll get back to my regular bedtime.
When this is over, I’ll stop drinking so much coffee.
When this is over, I’ll make time for laughter and friendship.
At one of my increasingly frequent doctor’s visits, the physician listened patiently to my litany of complaints and then leaned in. “When,” she asked gently but firmly, looking me in the eyes, “are you going to start taking care of yourself?”
At some point, I started realizing that there would always be another “this” waiting to be over, and while I couldn’t control much of the externals (although perhaps more than I often wanted to admit), what I could control was the way I took care of myself in the midst of it all. I needed to stop feeling guilty for taking up my own attention and time. I needed to start collecting the bits of me I’d been stepping over on my way…(where? I wasn’t sure anymore) and start walking toward wholeness.
So I found the key to the treadmill, started filling up my water bottle more often than my coffee mug, and moved some of the patio furniture so that I could work in the sunshine for short bursts throughout the day. I bought jeans that fit, made a physical therapy appointment, and gave myself permission to nap when I needed to. I slept in on Sundays and read a memoir just because. Little ways to love my fifty-year-old self, a self who seems to need more tenderness and attention than she ever had before. I’m learning, trying to adjust my expectations, my pace, my routines, my way of responding.
I’ve got a long way to go. Recently, I caught myself thinking, I’ll just not eat lunch when the grocery store didn’t have any discounted tuna sandwiches. (I know, right?) It was Friday, I was in a hurry, and I was hungry. I planned to grab a pre-packaged deli sandwich when I ran in to get the dinner ingredients before school pick-up. But I was looking for a bargain, and almost decided not to eat– just because the tuna wasn’t marked down.
Is that loving yourself? The Lord seemed to ask as I turned away, sandwichless, and headed toward the register.
I bought the full-price sandwich. (And later decided maybe tuna wasn’t ever supposed to be bought–or eaten–past its prime!)
That’s a small thing–but I haven’t even listened well to the big ones. I almost hemorrhaged to death in a hotel because I didn’t want to wake up my doctor in the middle of the night. “I’ll call him in the morning,” I reasoned as I passed out on the bathroom floor.
When did we decide we shouldn’t bother anyone with our existence? When did we start ignoring our vital signs?
What is virtuous about ignoring the God-given signals that say, in hunger pangs or hospital stays, take care of this fragile and fearfully, wonderfully made, embodied person that is you?
Our need to honor our embodied selves is not just so that we can keep going or finish strong, so that we can do more or do better. That is part of it, of course–we’ve got a lot to steward.
For me, providing for my family and household in this season especially requires all of me to be present each day with a clear mind, calm spirit, and healthy body. But we are not machines simply requiring regular maintenance so that we can get the job done.
Self care (not self-indulgence – big difference!) is, rather, a commission because of the sacred communion between my body and my soul. The care and regulation of my body has a deep moral and spiritual significance. A good spiritual director will always first ask, when a directee laments her lackluster prayer time, What’s going on in your life? Are you sleeping? Are you worried or distracted by something? Have you been sick? First things first. Grace builds on nature. We can’t neatly section off and compartmentalize our spiritual, emotional, and physical lives.
The Master Spiritual Director, Jesus Christ, did not dismiss the physical needs of his friends. He urged them to rest after they’d returned from mission (Mark 6:31), and cooked a meal after they’d been fishing all night: “Come, have breakfast” (John 21:12). That little line might be my favorite in the Gospels.
Because it all matters. It is all connected–intimately, intricately.
We are embodied beings – not simply souls tethered temporarily to bodies. We were made to be embodied forever. Death, the temporary separation of soul and body, is a foreign and jarring result of sin. Eventually, because of our baptism, we will have glorified bodies for all eternity. The Incarnation of Jesus means that the Son of God took on flesh, died, rose, and ascended into the Godhead as a man with a body, giving the body a whole other level of dignity.
It doesn’t always feel holy to be embodied. Our physical nature, corrupted by sin, often rebels, railing against its limitations. We feel split and pulled. “Sin has accentuated the opposition between body and soul in our human nature; nevertheless, they are so closely united that each takes upon itself the weight of any constraint that burdens the other,” wrote Father P. Marie-Eugène of the Child Jesus, O.C.D.
Our soul is deeply impacted by the sickness, stress, trauma, and suffering–and the enjoyment and pleasure–of the body. Our minds and bodies likewise bear much of the burden of sin, our own and the sins against us. They have picked up the charred remains of burned bridges and smoldering hopes and soldiered on bravely, sometimes for years, without rest. They will bear the weight of our wounds for as long as they can, eventually letting us know it is time to reach for the Lord’s tassel. Sometimes they cry out like a needy child, other times they whisper like a wise friend. Either way, our bodies are an essential, eternal part of our personhood and a partner in our healing.
Our physical bodies are the portals to sacramental grace and human love. They are the means of communion with God and with others. They extend God’s presence and saving work in time and space. They are holy doorways, but they are not just passageways to what is real – they themselves are living expressions of what is eternal, and miraculously, not only a revelation of who we really are but of who God is.
If we have forgotten how important our bodies are, our enemy has not. The devil wants us to dismiss, be disgusted by, or destroy our physical selves. There are so many ways he does this, but one way may catch us off guard: he uses our own zeal against us. Our desire to “do good” and “serve others” may turn into a kind of illusion that we can “save” them–or some situation– without considering the cost to ourselves. He will urge us on until we collapse under the weight of our self-imposed burdens.
Instead, we are called to live within and even learn to love the limitations of our emotional and physical selves. Those natural hedges (which we so often painfully bump up against) are the protections against our trying to do it all.
In other words, our bodies, in God’s design, reveal to us our own needs. And so we need not only to listen, but be grateful for their wisdom and warning lights.
As Dr. Allison Cook writes in I Shouldn’t Feel This Way, “The subtle work of braving embodiment can feel seismic at first. It’s an awakening. Slowly, you start to realize that your body is the very best sort of friend. A friend who gently speaks up when you’re overextending yourself. A friend who lets you know when you need rest. A friend who lights up with you when you shower it with good, nourishing activities. A friend who loves you back.”
The lesson here is yet another dimension of St. Elizabeth of the Trinity’s message: let yourself be loved.
In one of my favorite letters to her sister Guite, a young mother, Elizabeth wrote: “I know from one of Mama’s letters that you are tired, and I beg you to be very wise and sleep well, you need that so much. Do you remember how I knew how to take care of you?”
Teach us, Elizabeth, to care for ourselves by making good use of God’s gifts: sleep, sun, food, friendship. Help us to remain with ourselves, whole and grounded and fully human, and to heed the wisdom of our bodies.
Help us to let our beautiful, fragile (and yet eternal) embodied selves be loved.
_____________________________________________________________
Purchase copies of the Be Loved Litany here.
Image: Unsplash.
