The pieces that may fall...

I'm doing a lot of body work. I've never really been connected to my body. In fact, I have a very tenuous relationship with mine. I've never respected it, never loved it, and quite often openly resented it. It's fat, it's clumsy, and it really doesn't do what I want half the time. I fall down a lot. It now has weird muscle movements and spasms. I push it, it lets me down. So, I've spent most of my time in my head, disconnected. But through my DBT work, I'm learning that emotions are full body experiences, not just safely contained to your mind. Each emotion comes with its' own set of physical experiences and quite often, the times I feel unwell or sick are just the biological side effects of emotions. For those of you in DBT, Emotional Regulation handout 6 is miraculous. If you want to take a peak, here it is. 

I've been having chest pains. Nothing too concerning, but my chest hurts. All the time. And today, I know that is sadness. The sadness I always carry with me, the sadness I've never dealt with, the sadness I won't show to anyone. I'm constantly tense, holding the pieces of myself together because I think I may fall apart if I let it overwhelm me. Knowing that if I succumb to the sadness, I may fall apart, I may pool, and slump, and never return. My body may give out of me. Never  to rise again. To be washed away with the tsunami of sadness. So how do I release this sadness safely? How do I give my body a break? Holding yourself together for over 40 years is exhausting ... and my body deserves better than that.