What Our Bodies Want Us To Know

 Felt Sense Prayer

I am the pain in your head, the knot in your stomach, the unspoken grief in your smile.

I am your high blood sugar, your elevated blood pressure, your fear of challenge, your lack of trust.

I am your hot flashes, your cold hands and feet, your agitation and your fatigue.

I am your shortness of breath, your fragile low back, the cramp in you r neck, the despair in your sigh.

I am the pressure on your heart, the pain down your arm, your bloated abdomen, your constant hunger.

I am where you hurt, the fear that persists, your sadness of dreams unfulfilled.

I am your symptoms, the causes of your concern, the signs of imbalance, your condition of dis-ease.

You tend to disown me, suppress me, ignore me, inflate me, coddle me, condemn me.

I am not coming forth for myself as I am not separate from all that is you.

I come to garner your attention, to enjoin your embrace so I can reveal my secrets.

I have only your best interests at heart as I seek health and wholeness by simply announcing myself.

You usually want me to go away immediately, to disappear, to sleek back into obscurity.

You mostly are irritated or frightened and many times shocked by my arrival.

From this stance you medicate in order to eradicate me.

Ignoring me, not exploring me, is your preferred response.

More times than not I am only the most recent notes of a long symphony, the most evident branches of roots that have been challenged for seasons.

So I implore you, I am a messenger with good news, as disturbing as I can be at times.

I am wanting to guide you back to those tender places in yourself,

the place where you can hold yourself with compassion and honesty.

If you look beyond my appearance you may find that I am a voice from your soul.

Calling to you from places deep within that seek your conscious alignment.

I may ask you to alter your diet, get more sleep, exercise regularly, breathe more consciously.

I might encourage you to see a vaster reality and worry less about the day to day fluctuations of life.

I may ask you to explore the bonds and the wounds of your relationships.

I may remind you to be more generous and expansive or to attend to protecting your heart from insult.

I might have you laugh more, spend more time in nature, eat when you are hungry and less when pained or bored, spend time every day, if only for a few minutes, being still.

Wherever I lead you, my hope is that you will realize that success will not be measured by my eradication, but by the shift in the internal landscape from which I emerge.

I am your friend, not your enemy. I have no desire to bring pain and suffering into your life.

I am simply tugging at your sleeve, too long immune to gentle nudges.

I desire for you to allow me to speak to you in a way that enlivens your higher instincts for self care.

My charge is to energize you to listen to me with the sensitive ear and heart

of a mother attending to her precious baby.

You are a being so vast, so complex, with amazing capacities for self-regulation and healing.

Let me be one of the harbingers that lead you to the mysterious core of your being

where insight and wisdom are naturally available when called upon with a sincere heart.

Anonymous (believed to be written by a Chinese doctor)

A Bereaved Mother’s Dirty Little Secret

Mother’s Day 2015 marks 24 years since the death of my sweet daughter Meghan. She would have been 30 this year. Although I think about her every day, certain days are more likely than others to bring up emotion. Mother’s Day is most definitely one of them, alongside her birthday, the anniversary of her passing and Easter, as it was the last holiday we had with her. Though time has passed and the deep sorrow of the early days of grieving has lifted, there are still times when the pain of the loss is more present. Mother’s Day is a yearly reminder that this child is no longer physically present. Though joy may have returned, on this day that familiar ache returns for a visit.

Bereaved mothers have a dirty little secret and this is it: we’re often just a little pissed.  Watching our child’s peers grow up, perhaps get married and have children brings a strange mixed bag of emotions. There is joy for sure in this, but somewhere deeply buried is a chunk of resentment stuffed down deep where no one can see. Over time and with compassion and awareness this chunk can be whittled away, but most of us are embarrassed to admit that it exists and so we continue to stuff it down until it is buried so deeply that we barely notice it anymore.

Now don’t get me wrong, bereaved mothers can still be happy for these children who have survived and lived on after our own child did not. And there is joy in knowing they have developed into happy, healthy productive adults. In a way it offers us a glimpse into what would have been, had our child survived, and there is solace in that. We’re just a little envious, resentful and yes, sad that we will miss the milestones and markers that you will no doubt enjoy with your living children. It’s OK though. We have had to learn to live with this contradiction; the co-existence of joy and pain that reminds us daily that we are achingly fragile and unmistakably human.

What balances and helps to dissipate these negative energies that arise; energies like resentment, envy, grief? Only love can do that. And sometimes a fierce and persistent love is the ONLY thing that will do the trick. So if you happen to encounter a bereaved mom this Mother’s Day week, think on this and maybe love them just a little bit harder.

Happy Healthy Mother’s Day Moms! XO

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