Body Attachment

photo by Katie Kaizer

Nantucket

May 21, 2011

I am attached to my body.

This might seem like an obvious statement (most of us are pretty attached), but it’s actually something I’ve been working to let go of for a long, long time. Not my body, the attachment thing. My body comes in real handy when I have to lift the baby from his crib, go to the grocery store, or demonstrate a posture in class.

All sorts of spiritual gurus and leaders tout the benefits of practicing non-attachment, but it’s so much harder than anything I’ve worked towards, including my undergraduate degree, passing the NCTMB, learning a solid Chataranga, or even the still-ellusive handstand.

Non-attachment is a real bitch.

I’m several years into this process and still pretty attached to the state of my body: aesthetically, athletically, somatically. It’s a whole thing.

Last week I started off my Tuesday with my first ever mammography. On Wednesday I had an MRI of my left knee done (the same knee with the injury that ended my dance career in 2000), then I got a CT of my left ankle, which I’ve now broken twice in the same spot, once in 1989 and again when pregnant with my son in August of 2009.

Needless to say I was feeling tremendously attached to the outcome of all these procedures.

At some point by Thursday I was in the full throws of what-if’s. What if I need surgery? What if I can’t teach yoga? What if I have a malignant breast tumor ? What if, what if, what if…

As I worked myself up into a frenzy, my knee began to hurt, my ankle started to swell, and the area of discomfort on my right breast started to pulse. Fuck, I thought, was quickly followed by ‘Shit! I’m trying not to swear!”

Pause: I’d like to state for the record that in the last year I have given up all meat and seafood, alcohol, and dairy. Despite having a partner who would like it better if we both gave up coffee and bad language,  I refuse. I will continue to swear while eating chocolate and drinking coffee if for no other reason than to keep myself interesting for the sake of other people.

Anyway, as I started to think about my physical self, my physical life; work and play. I thought about what it would feel like to temporarily or permanently loose my athletic way of navigating the world, and the impact it would have on my livelihood.

In realizing that my body is literally who I am and how I support my family. I’ve decided to let go of this stupid interpretation of non-attachment. It was a big of a watershed moment.

In fact, it’s okay, it’s real and it’s honest to be an embodied practitioner. While we are so much more than the sum total of our body parts, (or yoga poses) we are physical beings and we need healthy bodies to engage in this human life.

So take pride and take care of your physical self. Move. Strength train. Eat well. Sleep. Be attached to your body. It’s the only one you get!

xo, C