I think of myself as someone who has a deep capacity for introspection and inner work, but this weekend I hit my limit. I hit that limit during the second to last topic at my spiritual direction training conference this weekend. We had about two hours to go. My back was hurting, I didn’t want to listen to the presenter anymore, I was annoyed with half of my cohort, and my exhaustion began to leak out of my eyes. I powered through and then sobbed “I’m fine!” to all the people I hugged goodbye. I sobbed all the way home, sobbed up the stairs to my bedroom, sobbed to my husband, and sobbed under the covers.
Twenty-four hours later, my veins pumped full of Bravo TV and half of Emma of 83rd Street (adorable btw), I’ve started picking at my feelings. I don’t like that I cried. I don’t like that I cried in public. And of course the crying started during a talk about embodied wisdom. I am really truly deeply tired of paying attention to my body’s wisdom and honestly, I would just like her to leave me alone.
I think the first trigger may have been the relative delight and joy with which the presenter shared her experience and knowledge about How The Body Knows All The Things. She shared how hard it was to get to where she is now, but even this was shared with glowing eyes and a smile. I felt resistance in my body (SEE WHAT I DID THERE), like I didn’t want to hear more, like I didn’t want to hear any of it. I was thinking: I am still in the hard place. I have been here for years. I don’t see myself leaving it any time soon.
Then the others in my cohort started commenting, asking questions. The comments were ok. These were from people who had also been in the hard place, or maybe they were still there, and they were agreeing and nodding and empathizing and sitting with. They did this while smiling, though, which made me suspicious. The questions were harder. These were from people for whom the body keeping the score was something they hadn’t thought much about. They wanted more context, more explanation, more examples. I heard my body shriek: what has it been like to live a whole life without needing to address what your body knows?!
How could they be asking these questions?! How were these comments so positive?! Why did people find comfort in this?! They must not have anxiety, I somehow must have said to myself. They must not have anxiety. And I’m pretty sure that’s when I started trying not to cry.
The work of my adult life has been trying to find the cure for anxiety. I started therapy at age 22. I’ve tried a dozen meds, naturopaths, psychiatrists, supplements, acupuncture, Christian counseling, hard core CBT, diet, exercise, pretty much everything except pot gummies because OF COURSE I will be one of the people who shakily climbs into her bathtub to wait out the overwhelming paranoia. I play a sick game with my life where when something bad happens, I ask myself: would I rather experience this bad thing or have anxiety. Nine times out of ten the other bad thing wins. And until recently, like a bit before the pandemic, I’d given up on finding a cure or a reason. I was convinced I had some kind of chemical imbalance. I did not have anxious thoughts. I did not feel stressed out. I was fine.
I will now pause for the hysterical laughter.
The hard core CBT helped me find the thoughts and feelings and constant stress I swore I didn’t have. And it turns out that almost every thought or feeling has potential to induce anxiety. I am, to my great dismay, a Very Special Snowflake whose body reacts to all the things and long long long before her brain gets around to identifying any of it. My body keeps, like, a bajillion scores.
I listened to these people chat - chat! - about the hardest work I’ve ever done, the work I think I’ll never finish. There is no cure for anxiety. There is only learning to live with anxiety. , The resistance I still have to that concept is off the charts. I listened to them marvel at what the body knows, express their thankfulness for learning to listen to their body, recommend all the nifty new books discussing this fascinating topic and I wanted to scream. This is not a talk at a training conference this is my pain, this is me, they are talking about me.
I am only here because I have clung to God with my fingernails. I have humbled myself and done the work he’s put before me. I do that work and then there is more and more and more. I see God, I see where he’s taking me, I pay attention, I love him, I want to go there, I want to be who he wants me to be so badly. It’s the only thing. I will go farther and farther, farther than I think I can go. I will listen to this talk and that one, I will write the papers and read the books, I will listen to my body. I can’t do it, I don’t know how to do it, I despair of ever doing it. I am only here because he helps me. I am only here because where else would I go?
Everyone in my cohort has experienced pain. I was wrong to think so poorly of them in that moment, that they were making light of my hardest seasons. Of course they weren’t. We’re a group of people training to be spiritual directors ffs. We are not oblivious to pain in ourselves or others. We are people who pursue the work. I think this just shows that even when I’m not anxious - I have been fairly anxiety free since January - it is still so close to me. I am overflowing with love and compassion for Anxious Me and I want to protect her, love on her. I want to save her from the work sometimes.
I’m in the middle of a leap in my spiritual life. I sense myself leveling up which is not a phrase you’re supposed to use, but I don’t have a better way to think about it yet. God is teaching me through my back pain, like it’s the kindergarten version of anxiety, showing me how I can impact it, change it, shift it. I don’t have a lot of words for this yet, but it’s another step into the mystery I keep reaching for. It occurs to me that it’s important to note this reaction in my body to the topic of embodiment. Maybe I will have better words for it later; this is the amateur version.
If you got this far, as always, thank you for reading. Why I put this out into the internet, I have no clue. I hope it resonates somehow.
xo
m
I love you, my friend. As always.