Body Language

Show me loving-kindness, O Lord, for I am in trouble. My eyes, my soul and my body are becoming weak from being sad.  -Psalm 31:9

"Our minds can trick us, but our bodies are honest." My coach (I'm in a pastoral cohort) said this the other day as we dove into a really complex conversation about pain, trauma, and how stress gets held in our bodies. And for a week, I've been thinking about it. 

You can say you're not afraid of heights, but your heart races and your breath stops when you reach a ledge. Or maybe after the divorce, you tell yourself that you have made peace and dealt with the anger. And then you drop your kids off with them and as soon as the door opens, the skin on the back of your neck stands up and you are in fight mode again. Your body remembers.

The Psalmist speaks about how emotional stress and fear were making his body ache. The Proverbs are full of reminders that certain behaviors "bring life to the bones" and other experiences make us weary. The writer isn't talking about how hard leg day is. He's talking about how we feel our pain, our worry, our fear, our past hurt... in our bodies. 

God created us to be integrated beings. When Jesus said that we should love God with our heart, soul, mind, and strength (Mark 12:30) he was reminding us that we are not disembodied spirits. Bodies participate in the joy and heartache of life. When Jesus is in the garden, we can see the weight of the world bearing down on his body. We're told he was "in anguish." Some scholars think that when Luke mentions Jesus sweating like great drops of blood, he was writing about hematidrosis. That's an actual condition where under intense stress, a person's blood vessels dilate and rupture. But that isn't the point. The point is that we get a glimpse of Jesus having a physical experience of an emotional weight. Anguish. Jesus understands this stuff because he experienced it. 

We humans are quite skilled at removing our bodies from our spiritual lives. The Gnostics did it 2000 years ago, and we modern day Christians do it today. Sure, we talk about having healthy bodies, working out, and eating well. But we spend a relatively small amount of time allowing our bodies to speak to us about our spiritual state and our wounds. And we get really skeptical if someone suggests that some gentle stretches or breathing exercises might enable us to release to God some emotional stuff that's built up in our joints. 

Our bodies accumulate and remember pain and trauma (book resource: The Body Keeps the Score). They reveal where we are vulnerable when our minds might not. So in order to be in tune with what God is saying to us, it's important to pay attention to the gift of our bodies....since God gave them to us. 

Most of my life I've thought that when I have sore shoulders, it's because I was sitting at my desk all day. Only recently have I started to realize that those aches are more about the pressures and expectations during that office time, than the sitting itself. And that awareness is helping me do some internal work with Jesus about how I handle pressure and expectations. 

If you took some time to listen to your body, what would it tell you? Where do you need slow down? What do you need to give extra sensitivity to? Where are anger and stress and shame and guilt affecting your health? Where does God want to invite you into healing?

When we deny our how we're affected by hurt and stress, it gets compounded. But when we acknowledge it, we have a chance to keep moving toward healing (both in the shoulders and the soul!). Thank God that Jesus is an incredible healer. 

Today, take a moment to get out of your mind and prayerfully sit with your body. It's a truth teller. 
What is it saying? 
Pay attention to what you're hearing, and allow Jesus to be a safe place for you to rest and recover. 

Lord, lead me to awareness, hope, and rest in you. 

Peace,
Keith

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