The Body Speaks in Hushed Tones - LISTEN

N is an acquaintance. I have known her for a few months and for the time I have known her, I have heard of the tough life she's been through since she was a teenager. From bearing the mantle of mother to her younger siblings to supporting a partner who was disabled in a car accident, N has seen times that some of us have only come across in books or films.

She has often said, "Stress is my middle name", and laughed as a consequence.

I have laughed to give her company, though I can say that in my deepest heart, I have not laughed at all.

Her stress has been slowly killing her. The stress of playing roles she might not be ready for. The stress of being there for everyone else, when her own body is falling apart. The stress of not being able to say "no".

It has seeped into her joints and her sacred hours of sleep. She has more nightmares now than she can count.

As someone who believes the organism is one whole and that body-mind-soul-spirit differentiations are necessary only to be able to study the parts, I look at N and wonder what her body might be telling her.

"Leave me alone!"

"Oh God! This hurts so much!"

"You're not even listening to me!"

A chill runs down my spine. In alternative traditions of bodywork, emotions are known to have an undeniable impact on physicality. Think of the energy centres ("chakras") and the way they can get blocked. If your anahata or heart chakra develops resistances, it is a high possibility you will develop heart disease.

The ancient texts wax eloquent about diet, exercise, sleep, meditation, but let's take it the way it is. You, me, N and a zillion other people, we've moved to lifestyles that don't support us anymore. Lifestyles that suck our very life blood. Lifestyles that show us illusory means of staying afloat, while we sink deeper and deeper.

Stress is at the core of our lives today. It is at the tip of our fingers, the gentle throb in our temples, it is in our eyes straining to see the light of the evening sky (through a smog of cars and disarray of concrete structures). We are dying in the middle of living a li(f)e.

At the cost of sounding morbid, I am saying what I am saying. And fixes such as "go for a run everyday", "eat a plant-based diet", "move to the mountains" etc. don't seem long-lasting to me. Think about it. Stress, in its basic form, is a form of nervous accumulation. It seeks to not just find expression, but channeled expression.

I will now use my own example. I have battled anger most of my adult life. All those who know me well, know me as an angry person. Now there was a time when I would sense anger in my system and to deal with it, I would go out with people I liked. I would drown myself in validation, laughter, admiration from the opposite sex. Yada, yada, yada. "Ha! See! I am not such an angry person after all!"

My body was keeping score all the while though. I began to develop sleep issues, I experienced a bitterness I couldn't explain, I became a kind of rigid I would any day hate in other people.

Until I had the equanimity to sit with my stress, work with it in therapy, experientially move it around physically and find a way to speak it out for what it was worth. Yes, my anger was my stress.

And I had to look it in the eye to change it, to acknowledge that there were other emotions sitting with it while I enjoyed a casual drink somewhere.

The body is a beautiful, intelligent, vulnerable system that deserves love and respect. It has its own way of talking to us. Are we ready to listen?

(Body Art in image - Leonardo Giacomo Borgese)