Staying Grounded in my Body
Not all up in my head
Hello beloved reader,
In being invited to share a post here on the INNER LIFE collaborative Substack, I chose a post from my archive that addresses my own inner life.
May you enjoy and be engaged by the writing❤️🙏🕊️
I believe our bodies contain wisdom we do not usually pay attention to. Often we hardly give our interiority the time of day. We’re taught to focus on the exterior. The material. On what you can see. On what you can measure and prove.
And by not paying attention to, and listening to our bodies, we may miss out on “living our dharma” or following our destiny, or remembering that we may want to live our soul’s purpose in this “one wild and precious life.”
Following is a recent example of my own ignorance.
This past April 14th, my husband and partner-in-love-and-life Jamie drove us home along dirt roads in the countryside where we live in Southern New Hampshire. I looked out the window into the lush green leaves on the trees in the woods woken from winter. We were returning home from a local friend’s place where we’d been conversing — or maybe debating is a better word — about the limitations of allopathic medicine. Which makes me think of that Brené Brown quote I love so much:
"I don't trust a theologian who dismisses the beauty of science, nor a scientist who doesn't believe in the power of mystery".
I know in my bones that healing is an art, and when allopathic doctors pay attention only to the science and the material realm, by dismissing the emotions, mind, spiritual aspects, the invisible energetic components; they miss out on so much that may help our healing.
I’m aware of the irony of how my last post was called I May Be Wrong, but the truth of my own experience is that I may be wrong for you, or for my husband, or for my friends, or for my family. I may be wrong about something that happened — I remembered it this way, but someone else remembers it differently. I may be wrong about something like I was certain that we had taken this road, but it turns out that we didn’t. But when I tune into my inner authority and inner divinity, when I really listen to my inner knowing, my intuition, it’s not possible for me to be wrong for me.
Because whatever experience I have, this is the experience I need for the evolution of my consciousness.
And perhaps this is a belief.1 And maybe this is another one of those paradoxical truths. And it’s definitely anti the patriarchy who want everyone to be obedient and listen to the outside authority, rather than tune into and connect with one’s own inner authority.
The American Tibetan Buddhist nun, Pema Chodron has said, “The idea of karma is that you continually get the teachings that you need to open your heart.”
Perhaps my consciousness is evolving to a place of understanding that I may be right for me, but I may be wrong for you. And my heart is opened by understanding I can accept others just as they are, without thinking they’re wrong. They simply make different choices than I do. Choices that may be right for them.
Jamie parked our car in front of our log cabin, we each got out, but when I went to close the door, I somehow slammed my left thumbnail in the car door. There was that nano second of shock before I felt the pain. I think I let out a scream, and then I watched the panic arise in my ‘self’ as I couldn’t pull my thumb out, and I realized I had to open the door again, which I managed to do through the shock and the pain of slamming my thumb in the door.
Poor Jamie heard me scream, looked at me with horror and said, “WHAT’S WRONG?”
“I slammed my thumb in the door,” I said through my sobs, and I ran inside to get some ice to put on it. Jamie is such a kind man — I also think he was as shocked as I was — but he got me exactly what I asked for: homeopathic Arnica pillules for the physical trauma of the bruising, and the Bach Flower Rescue Remedy for the emotional trauma and shock of having done that to myself.
In reflection, I wonder if perhaps the reason it happened was because I was all up in my head and out of my body. I was not calm, grounded and centered in my body, paying attention and being mindful, perhaps I was still ruminating on the debate over the limitations of allopathic medicine.
It’s almost amusing to me that there appears to be a need in me for other people to believe the reality that I live in, where I recognize the value of naturopathic and osteopathtic medicine, of homeopathy, acupuncture, kinesiology, Chinese herbs, et al. For me the bottom line is: whatever works!
From Googling I learned I needed to ice my throbbing thumb and let it rest, which I did while continuing to take Arnica and a new homeopathic combination I’d recently bought called T-Relief with Arnica which seemed to help ease the pain.
It is amazing to watch the thumb heal over time. The thumbnail had gone entirely black. After telling a couple of friends what had happened to my thumb, their response was that they thought I’d painted it with black fingernail polish.
A full seven weeks after the event, I caught the thumb nail on a towel, and the whole nail came off, which kind of freaked me out. It didn’t hurt which was great, but it looked so gory. I thought of a wiggly tooth when I was a kid, which seemed to calm my mind. The body just does its thing.
What’s left underneath is a half-formed thumbnail that will take perhaps 6-12 months to fully grow out. It looks a little gruesome in the meantime, but I am practicing the art of extreme care with it, while it continues to heal.
And this is how my mind works: even though it’s debated, I’m aware of the theory that the right side of the brain controls the left side of the body, and the brain’s left hemisphere controls the right side of the body.2 And I’m also aware of the theory that the right side of our brains are the centers for creativity, intuition, spatial ability, artistic, and musical skills.
So I figured my brain’s right hemisphere is connected with my smashed left thumb, which made me reflect; was I smashing my creativity and intuition? My artistic, non-verbal, emotional, imaginative side. What was going on here on a metaphoric level? Is there fear arising in me about connecting with my right brain? Am I blocking my creativity?
I was also interested to find this little experiment:
Grasp your hands together, intertwining fingers. Which thumb is on top of your grasp? If the left, this indicates a right-brained approach to your work – visual, spatial, intuitive. If the right thumb tops the pile, you lean to the left-brained – analytical, verbal.3
Guess which one of my thumbs was on top? The right one. Perhaps for me to have survived and thrived in our Western culture, and working in New York City for twenty years, I became left brain dominant; more analytical and verbal.
But I’ve noticed that with writing, sometimes I’m able to connect with my right brain which I feel like I did with this recent post: Cherished Spaces. And perhaps this is in line with the wonderful book, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards.
I’m also a huge fan of Louise Hay’s book Heal Your Body: The Mental Causes for Physical Illness and the Metaphysical Way to Overcome Them. In a preface to the 67th edition, she writes, “This little book doesn’t ‘heal’ anyone, but it does awaken within you the ability to contribute to your own healing process.” She also writes about her journey through cancer and healing. According to Hay’s obituary (she died in 2017 at the age of ninety) that little blue book, Heal Your Body, has sold more than 50 million copies around the world, and continues to sell. I soon looked up “thumb.”
Thumb problem
Probable cause: Represents intellect and worry.
New thought pattern: My mind is at peace.
Talk about spot on!
And I am aware with Louise Hay’s work that it’s important to be careful not to tell someone else, This is what is wrong with you if you have an issue with xxx. The Heal Your Body book is not about it being your fault that you’re sick or have an issue with your body. Louise Hay is pointing towards looking at the possible mental causes for physical issues and possible new thought patterns that may help you to heal. In essence she’s helping people to listen to their bodies.
I learned the hard way that it doesn’t feel great to be on the receiving end of someone else telling you that you’re responsible for your illness, it’s your fault that you’re having this issue with your body. When I had a cough that just wouldn’t quit, my sister texted me:
Cough
Probable cause: A desire to bark at the world. “See me! Listen to me!”
New thought pattern: I am noticed and appreciated in the most positive ways. I am loved.
While I could see the truth in this, it also kind of felt like someone else telling me that it was all my fault that I was coughing. When I’m sick, sometimes just some tea and sympathy, or some tender loving care can be so comforting. We’re dealing with possible unconscious thought patterns with this stuff, so it’s wise to proceed with care.
And of course we are body, mind, emotions, and spirit, and perhaps it’s wise to treat the whole person: the physical body in addition to the mind, emotions, and spirit.
But the older I get the more I understand that no one else can teach me what I’m not ready to learn. And so I have to remember the reverse of this as well: all that I offer — including my writing — is offered “on the table,” meaning anyone I offer anything to, gets to choose what they may want to pick up, or not.
And I’m curious, my dear reader, what your own relationship may be with the two hemispheres of your brain. I wonder if you identify with one side or the other, and if you do the hand clasp experiment above, which thumb is on top? And does the analysis ring true for you too? I’m curious about what your own sense may be of how, or if, your creativity may be connected with your right brain? And if you may do any particular practices when you want to connect with your right brain at will? Lots of questions today😁
Camilla Sanderson is the author of The Rising of the Divine Feminine.
I appreciate the reminder that the body knows things. In fact, our bodies are self-regulating all the time without our conscious awareness. I remember thinking about homeostasis when I first encountered deconstruction theory in graduate school. My body knew that there were physical realities that existed outside language, despite the many ways that we construct our realities through words. And if the body can engage in a form of meaning-making that isn't absolute (we're never in perfect balance, but always in a state of dynamic equilibrium), why can't we expect the same from language? This might be a bit afield of your post, but I think all of us as writers are aiming at a mark that isn't so different from what the body tries to do by trying to keep itself in balance. We know we can't capture our thoughts perfectly in words, but we give it our best approximation and we trust that readers will complete our thought for themselves. That doesn't have to be a perfect exchange of meaning for it to be essentially reliable.
There are a lot of echoes of your essay in neuroscience, particularly in the sense of the mind as an advanced expression of the body.
Stunning post: I have so many favorites from Brené Brown -- but let's start with her opening quote: “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.
"The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails daring greatly … .” from Theodore Roosevelt’s speech “Citizenship in a Republic,” delivered at the Sorbonne in Paris, France, on April 23, 1910 — Daring Greatly by Brené Brown
xx ~Mary with thank for joining us, Camilla