And Again
Oh no. She’s not going to talk about her sciatica again, is she? Yup. I’m back with more on the leg. The pain in my left leg has limited me from doing the things I love to do. Hiking is challenging, yoga is challenging, and skiing is not happening. You may think, “That’s okay; it’s April!” but we just got a massive dump of the beautiful white powder here in Utah. It seems to be the snow is taunting me, because it knows I cannot ski.
About 10 days ago, I was headed off for a yoga and meditation retreat in Southern Utah just outside of Zion NP. While I’m not up to my usual hiking and yoga bending self, I was still excited for the opportunity. I had been avoiding dairy pretty well, and I had added another beverage to my arsenal to help with my painful sciatica issues. I was drinking a 16 oz concoction of water, lemon juice, maple syrup, and cayenne pepper three times a day. A friend with Rheumatoid Arthritis had shared this recipe with me. She told me that when she drank the concoction, her inflammation subsided. I was so uncomfortable that I was desperate. I was squeezing half a lemon 3x a day, and I purchased extra lemons for my trip.
The morning before the journey to Zion NP, I met with a group of people on Zoom. We were discussing our bodies and how to take care of them. When I shared that I was trying all of these alternative methods for treating my sciatica, the leader of the discussion had a powerful comment for me. She said that she understood the desire to help my body get healthy, but she (and I both) knew that these alternative treatments did not have science to back them up. When I shared the cause and effect of my going on a dairy “binger” and then feeling awful the next day, she questioned whether extra dairy was the only thing going on that would raise the pain in my leg. She agreed that inflammation was most likely the cause of my pain, but she wondered what else was going on in my life. She pointed out that weight bias and stress were major causes for inflammation. She then started talking about “Body Grief.”
Body grief is the acceptance of the changes in your body. Accepting that your body is not going to be perfect (because no one is), accepting your “problem areas” (because they are just areas), and accepting that your body doesn’t need to operate perfectly for you to be healthy. These words gave me a lot to think about on my journey to Southern Utah.
When I arrived at the retreat, we were greeted by the beautiful mountain views of Zion NP. I felt safe and held by the majesty of the space. All of the attendees gathered together, and we were given an opportunity to set an intention for the retreat. Most people wanted to connect to the opportunity for change in their lives, to joy, to abundance. Me, I chose to set the intention of connecting to my grief. Specifically, I was connecting to my body grief, but at the start of the retreat, I didn’t know many of the attendees. Even with people there that I knew, I felt ashamed that I was focusing on my body. So I just said, “grief.”
As the retreat progressed, I thought a lot about my intention. Why was I so apprehensive about body grief? I have been working over the past few years to let go of my misconceptions about my body. I have been letting go of fatphobia, dieting, and the belief that my body has to look a certain way to be a “good body.” I have been working on recognizing that all bodies are fine as they are. But have I? Clearly, by eliminating dairy and drinking lemon/maple/cayenne concoctions, I am trying to change something in my body. Could part of the cause of my sciatica flares be the fact that I am not accepting my body as it is? Could the fact that I stress about my body be hurting my body? I thought about that for a while. I thought about how Judge Judy is getting involved (again!), telling me that my body is wrong and what I should do to fix it. Why would she do that? Maybe she wants to distract me from body grief. Maybe she wants to keep me from feeling disappointment. Can I accept this pain and just be? My body has done a lot of amazing things, and now maybe it just needs to slow down. That inevitability is a struggle. In past meditations, I’ve thought about the Buddhist “Five Remembrances.” The first 3 of these state, “We are all of the nature to grow old. There is no escaping growing old. We are all of the nature to grow ill. There is no escaping growing ill. We are all of the nature to die. There is no escaping death.” Perhaps I am fighting those inevitabilities. By not accepting my body grief, I am kicking and screaming my way against these unavoidable life processes. Well, kicking and screaming is not going to keep them from happening. So I think it’s time to to accept body grief. In the middle of the retreat, I made my decision to stop the no dairy and give the lemon/maple/cayenne drink a break. I made a mistake, and that was okay. I was going to listen to my heart and accept my body as it is.
During the retreat, I had the opportunity to journal and write. I took that opportunity to write about making peace with my grief and recognizing it is a time for gratitude…
My grief and I live side by side
I hold her hand and try to see the world through her eyes
She moves more slowly than I want to
I get to see through a new lens
I get to savor the experience
I love to savor things, giving them extra attention
I was afraid of an ending, yet what I was ending was my misperceptions
Before I left the area, I stopped at a store and bought a small bracelet with blue stone beards. I wanted to have a reminder of the retreat, as well as a reminder to listen to my heart. Apparently, “the body is not an apology” tattoo needed some reinforcements.
During my “no dairy” practice, I did learn that I like oat milk. It’s keeps longer, which is good since I live alone (it lasts longer than dairy milk), it tastes pretty good to me, and it’s better for the environment. So I am going to keep that one in my arsenal, using it for my dining and cooking. I also know from a number of sources (including my sports medicine doctor, discussions with others, and the wonder of the internet) that physical therapy is a valid way to combat sciatica pain. While I’ve had success with physical therapy before, I didn’t want to return to this method. I felt as if returning was going to be an endless cycle. I would have to go to physical therapy over and over again, and that seemed like a waste to me. How interesting - I was willing to give up foods that I love and drink a beverage I didn’t like, but I didn’t want to move my body in ways that could help me feel better. I think that’s a set of choices that I will be exploring some more. Perhaps while I am doing my exercises to move through this pain.
