Mothering The Body

“In a way, mothering is the task before us all-to nurture ourselves while vigilantly nudging ourselves forward. This requires a balance between self-discipline and compassion.”-Natalya Podgorny, Editor’s Note, Yoga International Magazine, Spring 2011.

I know this concept well. Not because anyone taught it to me but because it is a lesson taught by human experience. Those who learn and apply this concept experience a balance in their life between rest and ambition (or whatever term you choose to express the healthy stress in your life). As someone with chronic pain and an incurable disease this concept applies to my life most often in a physical, illustrative sense.

I must nurture, care and listen to my body, treating it with love and respect. Sometimes this means forcing myself to rest for an hour in the middle of doing housework and sometimes it means taking it easy for a whole day. The self-discipline side of things come both when I “force” myself to take a break and nurture my body and also when I tell myself I’ve been lying down long enough and I should go outside and take a walk (I know I’ll feel better for it).

This balance comes from a healthy relationship with our bodies and our minds. The mind-body link must be established through listening to our body’s signals and learning from past experiences. The practice of meditation comes in handy here when we need to slow down and let our body tell us what the next step should be. For instance, I might tune into my body which is saying, ‘remember how good a nice stretch feels in the morning?’ and my mother-self says, ‘yes, let’s greet the day with spirit and movement’ but my child-self says, ‘nah, let’s just sit in bed until we feel more inspired’. Here is the mother nudging her chick to the edge of the branch to fly. The chick’s spirit wants to fly, her body wants to fly, yet her mother still has to give her a nudge in the right direction.

Sometimes I fall off the bandwagon for a day and I realize at the end of it that I really wasn’t listening to my body and spirit. Maybe I ran off with all sorts of things to get done when I should have taken more breaks or maybe I stayed in bed all day when I should have gotten in some more activity. In pain rehab at Mayo Clinic we called this ‘moderation and modification’. Everything in moderation-activity in moderation and rest in moderation. Modification means fitting your moderation to meet your body’s individual needs, which brings me back to the practice of tuning in and listening to the body. Everyone’s body is different and they each have their own individual needs. Only you know what is truly healthy for you and you can only find that out by experience and listening to your body.

Nurture and love your body by mothering it as you would a young child- with compassionate discipline. As I continue to practice this I know that, even though my body has its share of troubles, I am giving it the best chance I can to overcome them.