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I recently received a question from a reader who had read some of my recent posts on Body Love. Her question was this: how can you love your body when you have a chronic illness that leaves you in pain? That’s a wonderful question and one that I have quite a bit of personal experience with.
It was the week before final exams in my first year in graduate school and I was having horrible menstrual cramps that abnormally painful for me. My gynecologist discovered a cyst on my right ovary about the size of a golf ball and a half. She told me to take it easy and hope it went away. Two days later, it burst. Emergency surgery left me with a diagnosis of Level 4 endometriosis. I was in such bad shape that my doctor put me in drug-induced menopause hoping the endometriosis would back off and control the pain. I was 21. By age 25, I’d had 5 surgeries, been in drug-induced menopause 3 times, spent the majority of my graduate education in excruciating pain, and was osteopenic (a side effect of the drug-induced menopause). I’d been on more hormones than I knew existed, but nothing worked. At age 26, my body gave up and put itself in natural menopause. My dreams of having children were over.
That’s when I began to hate my body. I couldn’t understand why what I felt was my God-given right to have children was stripped from me. My Body Shame, and really downright Body Loathing, continued unchecked for a decade. And then a miracle occurred. I had flown to Texas to help my mother take care of my father for the Summer. He had just been diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma and caring for him full time was taking its toll on my mother. One day as we were waiting for his dialysis appointment to conclude, I went to the bathroom. I was bleeding. I flew home. My doctors ran a bunch of tests and concluded that it was a fluke. 28 days later, it happened again. My body had healed itself out of menopause. I was 35.
For me, the miracle was not that my body had healed itself out of menopause. The miracle was that I finally realized that my body was not my enemy. It was not a traitor; it had not betrayed me. My body was a miracle. The day I realized this, I made a pact with myself. I promised I would reach out to as many women as I possibly could in my lifetime and teach them to love their bodies and appreciate the miracle of their body. We all have issues: no body is perfect. I get that. I was in menopause for 9 years and spent the previous 5-6 years prior to that double over in pain nearly every day. But the very fact that we are here – that our bodies keep us alive without us having to do much – that’s the miracle. To answer your question: how to you love your body when you’re in pain? You must learn to celebrate your body – as perfectly imperfect as it is.
Here’s the thing: I know you’re in pain, but your body is a miracle. I know you don’t think it is. I know you’re looking at yourself in the mirror and thinking, “Really? Have you seen my body?” or “Do you feel my pain? All the limitations I have because of my body?” I get it; I’ve been there. Here’s why I know your body is a miracle: your body does things on its own every day that keep you alive and you don’t even have to think about it. You can hear; you can see; you can breathe; your heart beats; your food gets digested and you don’t even have to think about it or worry about it. Your body performs thousands and thousands of miracles every single day. I am asking you to show a little gratitude for all of those tiny little miracles.
I get, because I’ve been there, that sometimes it’s hard to show the parts of your body that you see every day love because those are the same parts you are always criticizing. So we are going to start with what’s going on on the inside – the things your body does that you don’t necessary see happening.
Your challenge is to start a Body Gratitude list. I want you to write down everything you can think of that your body does that you are grateful for; the things that keep you alive. Everything and anything you can think of that you are grateful for. Maybe it’s that you love the color of your eyes. Write that down. Maybe you’re grateful for the fact that you can taste all that yummy chocolate you’re eating. Write that down. Maybe it’s the fact that you got to see your granddaughter perform in her first school play last night. Write that down. Maybe it’s the fact that you can smell the roses in your garden.
Your list may be small to start. That’s okay. Every time you think of something you are grateful for about your body or that your body allows you to experience, go back and write it down. This is the first step in transforming your body shame into body love. Will gratitude put an end to your pain? I can’t promise you that - over time, my relationship with my body changed and my pain went away, but your experience is your own. I don’t know what will happen for you, but I can promise you this: gratitude will change the way you see your body for the better. And isn’t that worth giving this a try?
