Dear Beloved Back Pain
I’m lying flat on my back, as I have been for the last couple weeks. My body is slowly healing from a small kid leaping on my back.
I have had cycles of back pain many times. I’ve seen specialists, I’ve changed my diet. I’ve gone for everything from faith healing to steroids. I’ve religiously done physical therapy, I’ve struggled to do physical therapy. I’ve berated myself for not being committed enough to my own healing. I’ve kindly and tenderly cared for myself in pain. I’ve relentlessly sought the cure. I’ve abandoned hope of ever finding the cure.
These last few years I had a long cycle of pain free living. It's been totally freeing. It brought me into a deeper realm of compassion for what it means to live with chronic pain. Like not noticing the annoying noise of static in the room until someone switches off the radio, I felt the sweet relief of pain free living and wondered how I coped before. I’m humbled by what is required, by me, by you, by anyone, to live with the radio static buzz of chronic pain in the body. It takes a particular kind of grit to make it through each day. My heart is with you if you are making it through today in pain.
This isn’t going to be a before / after story. I’m not going to tell you about how I’ve healed. There is no neat recovery, no insights or instructions. I am not gracefully coming to terms with the chronic nagging in the L4/L5 region of my lumbar spine. It’s annoying. I hurt. Instead of a healing mantra, I want to try to communicate through the muck. A little less self-help and transcendence, a little more open to the messy, moment to moment living.
This isn’t self-help, but there are some glaring observations from my horizontal position on the couch. I’ve had a year of overall TOO MUCH-ness, intensifying in these last few months. Funny, not funny, how two days after the last big commitment, the universe came to not just tap me on the shoulder, but to whack me on the side of the head and say “I think it’s time you learned about rest…” The universe did not mean scheduling an hour of “self-care” on the calendar type rest. We’re talking bone deep rest. We’re talking about not getting out of bed for 10 days kind of rest. We’re talking about watching a whole netflix TV series rest. I rested. It turns out, I still need to learn about rest. Thank you universe/back pain for this teaching, I have a feeling I will be learning this one over and over.
It’s hard not to future-trip about what this injury means for what I will and will not be able to do. I’m recognizing more and more how there is such inherent able-ism in my thinking. How I’ve derived value within myself through what I am able to do, how I am able to move, what I produce and contribute. I’ve been conditioned to believe that my functioning body lets me know my worth, and if my body is not functioning, I must work as hard as I can to make it right so I can keep contributing. Right now I feel a little more space to get curious. What happens when my body breaks down for good? Is it all over? Our death fearing, ableist, age fearing culture tells me that it is. My father, who is in a long term care facility, deep in dementia with so many aspects of his body broken down, tells me something different. I’m experimenting with less fear about dying which also means less fear about my body breaking down. This is not to minimize the very real challenges of aging, of which in my mid-life naivety, I realize I can’t know anything about yet. But as my body breaks down, in this very moment, and in all the moments to come, I’m finding more openness to the mystery. I don’t get to know how this unfolds. What I can do is release feelings of failing to keep up/stay functional/be productive. It’s helpful that my kids can make their own mac and cheese and I have less urgency about staying functional to keep kids fed. There is a bit more space to explore exactly what this body breakdown is like.
What I am finding out is how reliable my body actually is. Not reliable in the way that I can go mountain biking. Not reliable in the way that I can wake up pain free. My body is reliable in that I can count on it to let me feel. It is my conduit for sensing inward, for deepening awareness, for finding softness and love. My typical resourcing is out the window. There is no yoga or sitting on a meditation cushion. There’s not much time outside. I’ve been trying to tune into and really feel for my impulses. How do I want to move or not? What does feel good and resourcing? And then I get to ask, is that true or do I just think it’s supposed to be true? I’m noticing it takes a quality of receptivity to feel resourced. I need to be open to receive my own tender touch. I need to be open to receive nourishment and co-regulation from others. Can I receive someone’s love and care, can I feel safe, even as my body hurts? The same nervous system pathways that send pain signals to my brain, are also the conduits for love, nourishment, and connection.
It’s been a rough month. Beyond all the lying on my back, I feel a collective unraveling. There is so much suffering, in the world, in myself, in my friends who are experiencing indescribable loss, chaos and trauma. As I text with my friends, as I receive their deep care and love in the midst of all the unraveling, I’m struck by how easy it is for us to love each other, and how sometimes excruciatingly hard it is to receive love and resourcing inside our own bodies.
If you are still reading this far, I’m grateful. My intention was for this to be short and sweet. It’s not. Here at the end of this stream of writing while horizontal on the couch, I can feel a quality of my heart lifting, reaching towards you reading this. I can feel the resourcing, the softness in my chest, even as my back protests. I’m glad I’m lying still enough that I can feel this. Thank you beloved back pain for keeping me on the couch. I wish you gone, and I also feel gratitude.
May we all find some resourcing, belonging, and knowing what feels good, even as our bodies break down.
With love from my painful body to yours.
With love,
Liz
Some resourcing that’s come my way in the last few weeks:
On the subject of dying, this podcast from my coaching mentor Chela Davison and Death Doula Melanie Sheckels is really worth a listen. And this podcast with poet Andrea Gibson will change you.
On the subject of resourcing inside the body, Weena Pauly-Tarr’s course on Somatic Experiencing and Authentic Movement is moving me into a new level of being in, and feeling nourishment, inside my body. Here’s a little taste of what she does.
