Disconnected

pride and predatorHow come the more time we spend thinking about our bodies, the more disconnected from them we become?

The Oscars are a case in point.  Forget the films: it’s all about the dresses. Waistline over plotline. Botox over box-office. Big bad Hollywood, pimping out its daughters. I’m so disgusted I almost stop scrolling.  But I don’t. I’m blinking back sequins. My eyes are starving and I can’t rip them away.

Not that it matters.  These people aren’t real and there’s no harm in looking. They don’t affect me or my thinking. They. Are. Separate. Like my body and me. Cold and unlovely and disconnected.

When does the disconnect occur?

When do we stop listening to what our bodies tell us?

The constant tiredness.  The clenched stomach. The tension that runs like a ribbon through our veins.

When did the warning lights become threats?  Instead of helping and pointing us to something else, we turn upon them.  We make our feelings the  problem.  We ignore them, medicate them and silence them until we  can no longer read them at all. We funnel our feelings into behaviours.  Those behaviours become disorders.  We forget what we were running from and wonder why we feel so numb.

 

 

 

 

5 thoughts on “Disconnected

  1. This is great Emma. I feel chronically disconnected from, and often discontented by, my body. It often seems to point to emotions that I’ve not even realised I have, and that I just want to smother and ignore.

    It often feels like an almost impossible task to deal with the roots of these symptoms – but I guess that’s what Jesus does best.

  2. I give thanks for mine. Despite years of natural abuse and medical trauma it supports me and I keep ticking along – literally.

  3. Emma, I think that it’s literally easier to handle less of our bodies because they are so complex. A shrunken frame, where u can feel a few bones or see more prominent veins seems more real than the surreality of having an unreal but cruelly persistent e.d. Tyrant demanding our loyalty. How contradictory to God’s call to thrive!!? How liberating might it be to realise that we can never understand the powerful mystery of all that happens inside our shells. God made us, loves us, cherishes us&is most glorified when our satisfaction comes from a trust in Him. Cherish. Wonder how to cherish Him? Remember remember&ask friends, ministers, The Holy Spirit to remind us again:these are not OUR bodies. They represent Christ. Since we connect to&care so attentively to life-shrinking e.d.s, can we risk the love of a different master, who gives, doesn’t threaten to steal? Ironically loving my body as NOT mine, makes me love ‘me’ as a part of Christ (the only part some people might ever see of Him)even more. Thank God I am not my own!x

  4. thanks Howard!
    Ma Belle I often feel the same – but as you say, Jesus does the impossible.
    Phil: good reminder of the body I take for granted that serves me so well
    Julie: this is brilliant: Looking after a body that is not ‘mine, makes me love mine.

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