Getting back in touch with my body

When I was going through the exercises in Fat Is A Feminist Issue 2, it was mainly because they were in the book, and I felt that if I did not do the exercises I would be missing part of the book. (I did the exercises for Rozema's Behind the Mask also, though they didn't affect me as much.)

Somewhere in the process of all of the reading and thinking I realized that I was very disconnected from my body. I had kind of known it before, but I was past the point where I could ignore it. I had to do something about it.

I was very true to myself in forming a plan of action: I put action items into a spreadsheet, and when I wasn't sure what action items I needed I did a Google search.

That brought me to this page:

http://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-14660/20-ways-to-get-in-touch-with-your-body.html

It was helpful, but also the search started to automatically fill in "getting in touch with your chakras":

http://www.eclecticenergies.com/chakras/open.php

Every time I plan on going through that one I end up not doing it, but I can't quite write it off.

I am not actually done with my list, but it still feels right to start writing about the process now, and the first thing I want to say about it is that it can get kind of excruciating.

I am not at my highest weight now, but I am more aware of my stomach - hanging in front of me like a large lump of bread dough - than I have ever been before. My skin is dryer than it used to be (except for my nose, which is oilier) and it is obvious.

I used to be really good at shrugging off pain, but now I feel it more, and then even if my tendency would be to try and ignore it, I can't do that because the goal is to know what's going on. I used to be really good at pushing through things, and now I am aware of needing to drink and eat and sleep. (I am still quite productive, but I haven't felt invincible for a while.)

I have to be aware now that what I had tried to write off as sleeping wrong, but it grew to several nights so maybe it was the mattress or an injury that I had forgotten though it was weird that it was both arms, instead appears to be fasciitis, And that makes a lot of sense, because I have had issues with plantar fasciitis recently and I was diagnosed with fasciitis in in junior high, so clearly my fascia are not above acting up, but now I have to deal with it.

There is a warning here that if you are disconnected from your body that it is better to address that sooner rather than later. Age does not tend to improve many of the discoveries. Also, there are things that probably wouldn't have happened if I had never lost touch.

It is a very tangled thing. I was trying to shut down emotional pain. I still felt it, and I felt physical pain too, but I didn't grasp how much I was ignoring. I did not grasp how much they were connected. Still, my emotional pain was because of what I believed my body was, and that's what I was trying not to know; it would have been weird if it wasn't all connected.

Now seems to be the time to get into all of that: why I disconnected from my body, what it led to, and finding my way back. I know I'm not the only one, and so there may be something useful in this, but I guess I needed to start with the warning. This is physical and tangible and that includes the opportunity for a lot of enjoyment and pleasure, but it also brings out pain, which apparently you cannot make disappear by ignoring it. The pain has its value too, but it can be off-putting.

Life is not for the faint of heart.