I didn’t feel my body for 30 years.
For most of my life, I viewed it as a tool, an extension of myself that wasn’t truly me. Since it was a tool, I used my body to help me with what I needed–a mechanism to create my intellectual and social pursuits with the occasional dip into pleasure in the form of sex, food, and laughter.
Unsurprisingly, my body did not like being treated as an afterthought, as something to be used and abused. So it responded with pain. I don’t know exactly when this started, but one of my earliest memories is in sixth grade when I complained to a friend after second period that my stomach hurt. She responded with, “You say that every day.”
That was when I learned to dislike my body.
(And not in the form of beauty standards, which is an entirely different topic)
I spent the next two decades existing in a state of conflict with my body. Whenever I pushed too hard, it would retaliate. I was at war with the very thing that made me human, trapped in a physical prison and resentful of everyone who was able to exist harmoniously with their physical form.
This duality became my normal life. I accepted that my body could help me experience life's joys, but it was mortal and therefore flawed. That's why medications exist. I poured pain relievers, fiber pills, and PPIs down my throat to tame the beast of myself. At 21, I developed chronic stomach pain that doctors classified as “functional dyspepsia”, which is a catch all term for pain with no clear cause and no reliably effective treatment. My body fought for my attention, sometimes not letting me walk more than a couple blocks without the burning in my stomach making me cower in pain and hail a cab.
The pain dominated my physical experience, causing me to reject anything that might make it worse. I pushed away hugs, couldn't wear certain types of pants, and dreaded anything that would require me to lay on my stomach. Yoga for relaxation was out of the question.
I was in my early twenties, battling with my body. This was normal, right? The constant ads for pharmaceuticals on TV assured me that I wasn't the only one fighting to control my physical container.
So I kept doing the same thing, hoping that I could show my body that it worked for me, not the other way around. I worked long hours and forgot to eat lunch until the headache became so strong I couldn't see my computer screen. I spent 3 hours a day commuting, passing out in the evenings after eating dinner only for my alarm to ring at 5:45am and make me do it again. I declined social events where I didn't trust my body, such as picnics in parks with no bathrooms, crowded beach hangs, and parties at homes where I wasn’t close friends with the host.
This is normal, I repeated to myself. This is how you become successful. You push and push and ignore the pain. You can't get what you want if you stop every time it hurts.
In my late twenties, my husband looked at me with a curious expression. He turned his head, narrowed his eyes, and I knew something was wrong.
"This pain isn't normal," he said. "You're too young to deal with this forever."
I argued with him, assuring him that it was my normal, but in secret, I started to read about it.
I read the side effects of the meds I was taking only to uncover a long list of potential issues worse than those I already dealt with. Brittle bones stood out as a major side effect. I had broken my arm a few months before when I fell on black ice. Could there be a connection? I filed this away as something to look into once I "made it" and had achieved my dreams. I didn't have time to stop.
Then things took a turn.
My energy disappeared and my body refused to listen to my force. I started having more panic attacks that would last for hours. Walking up the stairs became a struggle as I wheezed for breath. My stomach pain roared, doubling me over if I accidentally bumped it with the laundry hamper or wore a dress with a belt.
Lab work revealed that I was dangerously low in B12, Iron, and Vitamin D–all essential for having energy and functioning as a human.
I had been taking supplements, but they weren’t working. Nothing was. Instead of taking more meds or continuing to fight, I had to admit that I had lost the battle. My willpower had sustained me for a few decades, but if I kept fighting, my body would only fight back harder. How long until it simply gave up?
At thirty, I made the decision to start working with my body. If I wanted the life I envisioned, I couldn’t be in constant pain, hiding in bathrooms or under covers until the pain disappeared.
The only problem was that after decades of ignoring my body, I had no idea how to take care of it.
At this point, I had worn out western medicine. I had tried every medication they recommended, and none of them fixed my pain. Dietary changes (no onion or garlic) improved some of the milder symptoms, but the chronic pain persisted. One doctor recommended acupuncture or hypnotherapy, both of which I had written off as too “woo woo” to actually work. I never tried them because I was sick of trying things that didn’t work. I wanted a magic pill to fix my pain, so I could keep living the way I had been.
But my body refused all of them. Which forced me to surrender and turn to less conventional approaches.
Once I switched my mindset, everything seemed to shift in my favor. I reached out to providers for appointments and a web of referrals spread out before me, connecting me with all types of options that could help my body–nutrition, EMDR therapy, acupuncture, energy healing, and brainspotting, to name a few.
I tried all of them, ignoring my fear that nothing would work and trusting that there was a reason all of these options had suddenly opened up to me. While I had called off the war with my body, I still didn’t trust it, and I had no idea if I could actually stop the pain.
To my surprise, in less than a year the pain disappeared.
I don’t know exactly what was the cure for the pain that had always lived with me. Maybe it wasn’t one thing, but a combination of everything all at once. Still, one moment shifted my perspective.
I found myself laying on a table for a craniosacral therapy session, a weighted lavender eye mask blocking out the light. The therapist used light touch to release the fascia, moving around my body to search for sources of disruption with a focus on my stomach pain. Halfway through the session, she caught me by surprise by asking, “If you could describe your stomach pain as a visual, what would it look like?”
I stammered that I didn’t know, that I had never thought about it. Doing so felt like the pain would have more power over me, and I didn’t want to make it any bigger.
She pushed me to envision it, and eventually I described it as a black hole with swirly edges that hid just inside of me.
She said nothing and lightly touched my stomach. Warmth spread an inch or so from her fingertips.
“Why do you think this swirly black hole is with you?”
“To cause me pain.” I said without hesitation. She moved her fingers to a different spot.
“What if it’s trying to do the opposite? Could it be trying to protect you?”
I said nothing because why would something create pain as a form of protection?
She continued to guide me towards the source of my chronic pain, to approach it with curiosity and love instead of resentment and war. By the end of the session, my throat burned as I fought back sobs, and the eye mask was soaked from tears.
Then the unexpected happened: something in my stomach cracked under her light pressure, and a warmth oozed down my abdomen like a cracked egg. I lifted the eye mask to search for the source of the heat, and found her standing at my feet. The sensation of her hands on my belly was still there, and the warmth kept moving.
She smiled at me. “That’s a good sign in a first session.”
Eventually the oozing warmth stopped spreading. My lower abdomen grew sensitive, each sensation foreign as if I was feeling it for the first time in years. The pain still existed in my stomach, but for the first time, I had a real result. Something had shifted, and I couldn’t ignore it anymore.
At that moment, I learned how to feel my body, possibly for the first time in my life. Instead of being my enemy, it became an ally, a source of truth and inspiration. I learned to trust that if something felt off, there was a reason for it. And I learned to lean into the things that made my body feel good rather than use it until it broke.
It took a few months of trying different modalities for the pain to finally go away, and I still have to maintain it now or it will return. The moment I start ignoring my body, it fights back, reminding me that we are a team, and I need to slow down.
I can say without hesitation that if I hadn’t learned that lesson, I wouldn't have the energy or stamina to pursue my dreams. Paradoxically, by slowing down and tending to my physical self, I have more time and energy to put into my other pursuits, whether they be creative, business, social, or family.
We often hear success stories where the person woke up every day at 4am and put in sixteen hour days to hit their goals. This type of narrative creates a sense of shame and laziness for anyone not capable of sustaining that type of work ethic.
But can anyone really sustain that approach? Is it possible to repeatedly achieve your goals while ignoring your physical body?
After my experience, I’d wager not.
I share this story because it’s easy to focus on the planning, the image, the results, or the vision when pursuing your dreams.
But sometimes, we need to take a step back and listen to our bodies. What are they telling us?
Check in with yours today, and if it’s silent, it might be because you’re in your own battle without realizing it. Once you stop fighting your body, imagine the energy you’ll have to actually do the things you want to do.
And maybe you’ll be able to release the pain too.