Aug 2020
At first, the stomach pain was so overwhelming and sudden I assumed I must have eaten something. This was the second time I had had a spasm like this in 48 hours. It was a twisted stuck-feeling knot, deep down, that was so painful it took my breath away. I had to lie down, which no stomach pain had ever forced me to do before, except during labour.
What had I eaten? And why had I never had a pain like this before? It was different to food poisoning because there was zero nausea with it. It felt more like a digestive ‘road closed’ sign and there was no diversion. Digestion being so fundamental to health, it felt honestly like I might die.
My brain searched first for material answers - it must be food, I thought, but I had eaten nothing rotten or out of the ordinary. No alcohol. Not the time of the month, nothing had happened to provide an obvious answer.
At the time, I was on holiday with my entire family, including two people with whom I had always had strained relationships. I had my husband and two small children with me, who desperately wanted me to join them on the beach. But I couldn’t get up.
The knot drew tighter inside and I looked down at my perfectly normal looking tummy. What is going on, I whispered to it as I stroked it. What is the problem? What do you need? What are you trying to tell me? I am listening. My pain was so acute that there was literally nothing I could do but lie still and wait.
While waiting, I listened. I used my yoga experience to feel what the cause could be. My intuition, my gut, told me it wasn’t something I had consumed. So I then asked myself what was occurring in my life at that moment. I was away from home, which often gives me anxiety as bags need to be packed and the kids and I can be unsettled by all the changes. Was it just anxiety? The pain was too much for that. It was the sort of pain that was saying ‘stop’ very loudly. But stop what, I wondered?
What was happening at the time of the two spasms? I had been walking with one of the two family members who I found difficult and my 7 year old daughter and when we arrived home my family member and I had a nasty but petty argument, and I stormed upstairs. That was when this spasm came on. The first one, I couldn’t remember what was happening when it had occurred. Could it be my body telling me something about the nature of my relationship with that family member? That it had to stop? Certainly the pain was keeping me away from that person. And interestingly they had not come up to see how I was.
That is when I realised my first spasm had occurred after an argument with the other family family with whom I had a strained relationship.
My body was telling me to stay away from those people. Something had occured in my body which made being with them no longer an option. My body was telling me it was time to get out of those relationships.
Now I heard the signs loud and clear and I knew in my gut this was my body’s way of forcing an issue which was long overdue - to overhaul and reset healthier relationships with those two people by way of putting my Self first. And it was about much more than those two people - it was about how I related to my Self, about what I was willing to tolerate, about how much I was able to love my Self. The deeper wisdom of my body had literally forced my hand and taught me the most important life lesson - put your own oxygen mask on first. Love your Self first.
Now I see many of my other illnesses as having been my body’s way of teaching me how to love my Self better. I will be forever grateful to the knowing divinity of my body and now I always have an ear out listening for what it is trying, whispering or shouting, to teach me.
Namaste
with special thanks to Gabor Mate for his book When The Body Says No