Work with me

I've been afraid of changing, because I
Built my life around you
But time makes you bolder, even children get older
And I'm getting older too
             'Landslide' Fleetwood Mac

Remember how I said in my last blog that if the shit hit the fan it was all right because shit isn't shit in the end? Well bugger me, I am a prophet because that's exactly what happened. Long story and I am over talking about it and it's time to talk about something else now. But the shit did indeed hit the fan courtesy of the Home Office, resulting in a cross country dash to Liverpool and me getting my permanent residency visa.  Stress!!!!! Relief!!!!!!!

Time to do and think and be other stuff now for which I am very bloody grateful and I am sure you are too. There's only so long you can be a moaning minnie about one particular subject before everyone wants to shove your head in a bucket of water and even you think it's a good idea to leave it there.

In the midst of the shit hitting the fan, other than deportation I was thinking a lot about the whole concept of 'bodymind'...that idea of the body and mind being an integrated whole and therefore needing to be treated as one. I should point out that for a lot of reasons I have spent a lifetime and a lot of time and energy trying to keep my body and mind separate. Hard going as even if you don't buy the integrated theory one is pretty much stuck with the other innit? Hmmmm.

I think all you need to grasp the concept of bodymind is to observe the effect of extreme stress on the body, which is what I was doing the day after I found out the Home Office was returning my permanent visa application a week before I was due to become an illegal immigrant. Well, observing the effects of stress on the body and trying not to fall over or throw up, because I had an absolute killer migraine. Why did I have a migraine (a body thing)? Because I had stress (a mind thing). If the body and the mind were separate, would I have had stress but no migraine or migraine but no stress? Hmmmmm.....

Extending that idea...does the way you think about yourself and respond to the world, not just stress, have a direct effect on your body? Louise Hay talks a lot about this stuff.  I'm not sure I'm down with her list of emotional conditions and the directly corresponding list of illnesses resulting from it because frankly I don't know if, for example, not being able to forgive your mother for burning your birthday cake when you were 12 can correspond to ONE thing that can go wrong with your body.  We are much more complex creatures than that. If it was that simple we'd all be perfect specimens of mental and physical health, wouldn't we? Or am I just overcomplicating things? Wouldn't be the first time haha.

But, but, can't get away from the basic concept that the way you think ultimately determines what you are. If you don't think you can improve your life or you physical or mental health, you probably won't.  You only need a crumb of belief to get started, but if you don't have the crumb, don't look for it or choose not to eat it, won't your mind and your body respond in kind and just give up?

In one of those 'confirming your thinking' kismet moments I happened to be reading an old Grazia in the bath this morning (as you do) and they had an article about emotional cellulite, i.e. you may have dumpy thighs because of your inability to let go and forgive yourself.  No wonder my thighs are massive!!

All right so you probably shouldn't take the word of women's magazines on complex physiological and psychological issues but do they have a point? If I can get migraine, more hardcore ME symptoms and neck ache through stress, why not incredibly chunky legs?  Is the size of my arse a reflection of my lifetime of self loathing and doubt?

I hold my hands up to spending waaaay too much of my life trying to get rid of symptoms rather than address the disease, or dis-ease as the self help gurus call it. Given that I have spent a fair bit of my life in chronic pain, overweight and trying to overcome a past best described as challenging, that is a lot of symptoms and a lot of life and there are some things you can't take pills for, because frankly there are no drugs that good.

There are plenty of times I would have quite happily climbed out of both my body and my mind and gone in search of a better place to live and no that's not a veiled suicide reference. There have been a few occasions where death looked pretty good but I'm too bloody minded to give in basically. I'm only just now getting to the stage where I'm comfortable enough with myself to think my own mind and body are actually OK places to be, even if some fresh paint and repairs are required. Climbing out of your own body and mind is not an option obviously so as the renovation experts say, don't move, improve.

Need to think more about this stuff and what it means for me, the weight, ME and general physical and mental wellbeing.  Also call a meeting and convince my body and mind they are actually on the same team.  If I can't work with me, who can?