Episode 22 - Embodied
In my body. Out of my body. It’s strange to think in these term. We just always think of ourselves in our bodies. But I don’t think that is always true. When I am worried about the future, or lamenting about the past, I leave my body. When I zone out, become like a vegetable on the couch, I seem to leave my body for an imaginary world in the TV. Or like most people, when I am scrolling on IG, FB or YouTube, we leave our bodies. We are out of touch with what is happening in them.
I am reading a lot of different books. This is actually kind normal for me. I rarely just read one book all the way through, unless I am lost in a fiction book, I usually jump between books. I’m reading Curt Thompson’s Anatomy of the Soul and Richard Rohr’s Everything Belongs. On the surface they are about different things, but I seem to have found the intersection. Or maybe it’s clearer to say, I experienced the intersection.
But first I need to back up. I am an addict. I get obsessed and addicted to things. Boys, drugs, alcohol. I’ve been in recovery. I’ve done a lot of work. But this trait is not relegated to boys and drugs and alcohol. I’ve also been a diet addict. I think I have tried everything. I’ve read tons of books, been on every website, been a member at dozens of gyms. At one point, I thought I found the answer. It was a Christian based method. The basis was that God created my body perfectly, and if I obeyed and ate when I was hungry and stopped when I was full, that I would lose weight and I would be the correct weight. And actually, this did work. Kinda. I did lose a lot of weight. In fact, so fast that half my hair fell out. I guess this is normal for rapid weight loss. But there were repercussions to mixing weight loss and religions. It gave God an opinion on my body, more than an opinion, a judgement. If my body was thin, it meant I was obedient and God was pleased. But if I wasn’t thin, then you get the idea. I was thin for a number of years. But there was still something deeper that was calling me to eat that I hadn’t fixed. And the guilt and shame of not being able to stay thin was intense. And you can just imagine what happened then when the pandemic hit. No gym, no friends to see, no outside world.
I worked on my head and heart about this last fall. I actually worked with a therapist about it. Unraveled a lot of my beliefs about the scale, my weight, my body. I decided that I would stop weighing myself all together. This is a crazy and scary decision. The scale has had this crazy power over me. When I was losing weight, I weighed myself every day. I watched it go down every single day. I celebrated and took in all the nice things it had to say to me. But then it stopped. And then it changed directions. It felt like an ocean I was trying to hold back. I would eat good, work out and still, it had nothing good to say to me. Like someone who had once been a good friend who now had turned on me. Betrayed me. The worst was when I felt like I had been righteous, but I couldn’t lose another pound. What did this mean? Was I not righteous? Was God unhappy with me? Was I not obedient?
Six weeks ago a group of friends decided to all do Whole Life Challenge. It’s more than just a diet. It’s 7 habits, eating, exercise, water, sleep, stretching, self care and reflection. I joined a gym with my friends and decided to try and find some balance. At the beginning, everyone weighed in. I didn’t. I know where my body is.
It’s 6 weeks later. I feel strong. But not smaller. I’m eating healthier. But I’m not smaller. I think I do want to be smaller. I have this image in my head, of me holding my friends newborn baby. I’m wearing cut off jeans and I look thin, healthy. That’s what I want. But why?
And now we come back to the books. Curt Thompson talks about the neuroscience of spirituality. The way that our brains interact with all that we experience. The brain tells us what is happening in our body. It registers pain and pleasure. And the mind isn’t ever static. Even when we are sleeping, it’s ticking away. It’s made me think about what gets trapped in our bodies. Things our brains can’t fully process, but we still carry them around with us. Like little foxes that ruin the vineyard, they can’t be caught. But they run through the isles creating havoc and destruction. We don’t even remember where they came from. We only seem to catch glimpses of them. But their mark is left behind. We know who caused the destruction.
Richard Rohr talks about the kinesthetic knowing. We know something in our bodies. We feel it. He talks about presence not as something we even need to learn but remember. We knew when we were babies, but somehow life pulled us away from all that we knew and had us worry about the future or fret about the past. What if we could live in the present moment? Here right now. In this moment. Present in my body right now. What are the things that are pulling me out of my body?
My body. Ah yes. I keep stepping out of my body. Even in my weight loss, I’m trying to escape my body. I dream of heaven when I get to shed this body. Do we get new ones? Are we just spirit? Either way, this body is shed, left behind. Yet, this is the body that God put my spirit into. He put my spirit, my soul into this body. He chose this body. Short, white, blonde. He chose each part of my body. It was not haphazard. It was not mindless. He knit me together in my mother’s womb. Knit me. Knit. To make a garment by interlocking loops of wool or other yarn with knitting needles. He chose the materiel. He had a vision, a plan, a dream maybe. And he set to work. In the palms of his hands. This body. The one I long to leave.
What if I stopped trying to leave it all the time? Everything I have done has been part of my escape plan. All the addictions. Escape. Get out of this body, find a way to not have to experience it. The boys, the drugs, the alcohol, the sex, the diets, tv, social media, all of it. It’s all a way of escaping. Of not having to be in this body. And food. Let’s tell the truth. When you eat, your brain makes dopamine. You get happy. Food is happiness, in drug form. But then it wears off and I find myself back in my body.
The intersection. Everything I had done up to this point has led me to this point. It was all part of the journey here. It all belongs. All of it. No need to fret about the past. Or even worry about the future. What I could be curious, and choose to stay here inside my body for this moment. I want to eat, but I’m not hungry. I’m not bad, unrighteous. I’m not even disobedient. God still loves every inch of this body. Every hair on my head. My eyelashes, my toes. Every part of me. There is not part of me that he is disappointed in, or wants different.
What if I could be present? Why do I want to eat? There seems to be something that feels, missing. Something incomplete. Something not whole. But when I eat, it artificially fixes it, temporarily. More like creates a distraction so I can’t tell when was really wrong, or maybe not wrong at all. Maybe I have been lied to. Ah. The liar. He convinces me that I am not enough, something is wrong, fix it. Control it. Make it better. Get on the scale. Don’t ever get on the scale. Make a big deal about the scale. The size of your jeans matter. It doesn’t matter, just eat everything you want. The lies come from both directions, keeping me dizzy and confused. How can he get me to believe both sides?
But if I stay in this moment, I can’t get pulled in. The liar really only lives outside this moment. Because in this moment is God. He is here, now. If I can stay here now, he is here with me, whispering in his sweet small voice, the truth. I knit you together in the palm of my hands. I know every part of you. Stay here with me. Stay in this moment. It may not always feel happy. It may not always feel good. But this is where God is. This is how you will be known. And loved. Stay here. Don’t leave.
Gen 2:7 -
One day the Eternal God scooped dirt out of the ground, sculpted it into the shape we call human, breathed the breath that gives life into the nostrils of the human, and the human became a living soul.
Psalm 139:13 -
For You shaped me, inside and out. You knitted me together in my mother’s womb long before I took my first breath.
Isaiah 43:1 Eternal One:Remember who created you, O Jacob? Who shaped you, O Israel? See, you have nothing to fear. I, who made you, will take you back. I have chosen you, named you as My own.
Books Mentioned:
