Protection Isn’t Intimacy

 I have been wondering how long I have been afraid of my own body.

As I sit quietly with that question, it feels as though the answer reaches back to my earliest years.

Perhaps even to the time when I was two years old.

I can’t say with certainty what happened.

My mind holds no clear memories.

But my body has carried a story for as long as I can remember.

For many years, I lived in protection mode.

Without realizing it, I learned to guard myself.

To stay alert.

To brace.

To disconnect from the places that felt too vulnerable.

When I came into recovery, something beautiful began to change.

I slowly became kinder to my body.

I stopped pushing it quite so relentlessly.

I learned to offer it more compassion than criticism.

But looking back now, I realize something was still missing.

I had learned kindness.

I had not yet learned intimacy.

There is a difference.

Kindness is treating my body gently.

Intimacy is feeling at home within it.

Protection creates distance.

Intimacy invites closeness.

For much of my life, protection was exactly what I needed.

It helped me survive.

It carried me through experiences that felt overwhelming.

I am grateful for the wisdom of a body that did everything it could to keep me going.

But perhaps my body is asking something different of me now.

Not to abandon protection overnight.

Not to force trust before it is ready.

But to slowly, gently become a friend to the body that has carried me through every season of my life.

To listen instead of defend.

To soften instead of brace.

To come home instead of stand guard.

Perhaps this is the next step in my healing.

Not fighting my body.

Not fixing my body.

But building a relationship with it.

One breath.

One gentle touch.

One act of trust at a time.

Maybe that is what intimacy feels like.

Finally coming home to the body that has been waiting so patiently for me all along.

Learning to Rise

 There are days when the physical pain feels especially heavy.

Sometimes I get a glimpse of my old self. For a few precious moments, I remember what it feels like to move through life without constantly thinking about my body.

Then the pain returns.

My body gently reminds me that I am not healed yet.

In those moments, I find myself reaching for strength once again.

A strength I didn’t know I possessed.

A strength that seems to meet me every time I think I have reached the end of my own.

Years ago, I made a promise to myself.

No matter what life placed in my path, I would always rise.

I have kept that promise.

Not perfectly.

Not gracefully every day.

But faithfully.

That doesn’t mean it has been easy.

There have been days when I felt exhausted.

There were even moments when giving up seemed easier than taking one more step.

Yet somehow, each time, something within me quietly whispered,

“Rise.”

Not because I was fearless.

Not because I was certain everything would work out.

But because hope, however small, refused to leave me.

I have learned that rising doesn’t always look dramatic.

Sometimes rising is simply getting out of bed.

Sometimes it is choosing to pray instead of despair.

Sometimes it is believing that tomorrow might hold a little more light than today.

Perhaps rising isn’t something we do once.

Perhaps it is a lifelong practice.

A decision we make over and over again.

And if my life has taught me anything, it is this:

I may bend.

I may grieve.

I may grow weary.

But by the grace of God, I will continue to rise.

Not because life has been easy.

But because hope has always been stronger than despair.

The Nervous System

 I am learning that the many years of stress my body has endured may have profoundly affected my nervous system.

As I look back over my life, it isn’t difficult to understand why.

I think about my childhood and all the feelings I learned to silence because there was nowhere safe to take them.

I think about the years of watching my beloved daughter slowly disappear into addiction, carrying the helplessness and heartbreak that no parent ever wants to know.

I think about the people I have loved and lost.

My son moving away with my grandchildren.

My partner’s passing.

So many goodbyes.

So much letting go.

Then I think about myself.

For years, I kept asking more of my body.

Keep going.

Push harder.

Don’t stop.

There was always another responsibility, another crisis, another reason to ignore what my body was trying to tell me.

Perhaps my body wasn’t failing me.

Perhaps it was carrying more than any body should have to carry.

When I see my life through that lens, I find it easier to replace judgment with compassion.

My nervous system has spent decades trying to protect me.

It has stood watch through grief, trauma, loss, fear, and uncertainty.

No wonder it has struggled to find rest.

Today, I feel a new commitment growing within me.

I owe it to myself to be kind.

To be gentle.

To stop treating healing as another task to accomplish and begin treating it as an act of love.

Maybe this season isn’t asking me to push harder.

Maybe it is asking me to listen more closely.

To honor the body that has carried me through every chapter of my life.

And to give it something it has been longing for all along.

Rest.

Compassion.

Safety.

Healing.