My Body Is My Friend

How I Learned to Cultivate Friendship with My Body

“It's as if you're stuck in a prison,” he said solemnly, as he looked up from his computer where he had been typing in my chart and peered into my blue eyes through his round spectacles.

For one of the first times, I felt seen by a doctor. After hearing my story, he had given words to exactly what I felt, trapped in a body that seemed intent on making me feel miserable and that kept me from pursuing my dreams.

At that moment, his words were a balm to me. Finally, I had a doctor who fully believed what I told him and responded with empathy!

But his words were also damaging.

Coming from a doctor, his words were all I needed to hear to cement the narrative that I had begun to believe.

My body was my enemy.

After all, he'd just confirmed what other doctors had told me. My body's immune responses were excessive. The problem was less that I had tick-borne infections. The problem was that my immune system reacted to them in a way that made me very sick.

And yet, all the immunosuppressive treatments I'd tried for my Mast Cell Activation Syndrome had failed or provided little benefit. He told me he was sorry but that he knew of no other way to help me than to attempt to eliminate the infections entirely so my haywire immune system would calm down.

I held back tears. I knew from experience that all antibiotic treatment made me feel worse initially as my immune response was ramped up even further by what doctors called a herxheimer reaction, but I was told to simply push through antibiotic treatment and that with time I'd feel better. In the weeks, months, and then years that followed as I persisted through treatment and lay in bed unable to do the things I loved, I hated my body even more. Eventually, I did see some improvement with the treatment, but I still felt as if I was at war with my body.

A few years later, when I quit tick-borne infection treatment and began brain rewiring, I said five words that seemed impossible back then.

My body is my friend.

They didn't feel true at first, but with encouragement from Sarah Jackson, I decided to live as if they were true. That was a pivotal point in my recovery.

I began to recognize that my body had endured physical trauma from the infections and emotional trauma from what had resulted, including strained relationships, feeling reduced by many doctors to merely a problem to be solved, instead of a human to be loved, and nearly dying more than once.

As a result, my body didn't feel safe. My brain was constantly on high alert, and my limbic system had become overly sensitive. It was as if I had been bitten by a snake, and now, in an effort to protect me, my limbic system was misidentifying sticks as snakes and sounding alarm bells in the form of unpleasant sensations whenever I saw a stick on the ground. It was as if my limbic system was a security system that had become overly sensitive and was sounding alarms if even a leaf or drop of rain drifted past the camera.

For me, things as benign as noise, light, and smells would trigger a limbic reaction. But with my new understanding of the brain and the effects of trauma, I finally realized that my body wasn't trying to hurt me. It was trying to protect me!

My brilliant limbic system had protected me many times. It was my limbic system that made me run when I started to cross the road at the wrong time or when an aggressive dog began to chase me. It was my limbic system that made me feel unsafe and get away when I saw people displaying odd behavior.

But I didn’t always listen to my limbic system. That was part of why it was screaming louder and louder to be heard and becoming more and more sensitive. I began to realize that things like pushing through treatment had often made my limbic system even more reactive.

I began to realize that part of rewiring my brain and healing from trauma would mean learning to love my body and practicing self-care, thus signaling safety to my brain.

As a Christian, I had thought that self-care, beyond attending to my basic needs like eating, was selfish and sinful. After all, we are called to take up our cross and follow Jesus (Matthew 16:24). But while we are instructed to walk the straight and narrow road and to not live for ourselves, we are called to take care of our bodies. And my body needed more care in that season. It needed somatic practices, naps, and chances to move slowly. My body, intertwined with my soul, also needed things that every thriving human needs: the need to be seen, known, and loved. I just needed more of all those things in that season. Sometimes I still do.

In my years in bed, I had heard many times about the importance of my soul. When I became sick, people told me how God was refining my character and how He was sanctifying me. They were trying to provide comfort that my pain had purpose, and their statements weren't untrue. But I had internalized those messages in a way that I had begun to think my body wasn't of importance, only my soul was.

Yet Scripture shows us that our bodies are valuable when it says in 1 Corinthians 6:19 that our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit. Furthermore, Luke 5:16 speaks of Jesus withdrawing from crowds to pray and spend time with his father. Jesus wasn't always performing miracles and preaching. He took time alone to care for his soul and body.

DNRS taught me the basics of how to rewire my brain and science behind it, but Sarah Jackson laid the foundation for me to understand the worth of my soul and body and why I should care about rewiring—because I matter as a whole human being. I stopped approaching treatment as a way to fix myself and instead approached it from the standpoint of doing it because I mattered. I mattered to God, and He cared about me as a whole person.

The light of truth broke the barbed wire of false narratives, and I began to heal from the deepest parts of myself. My body was not a prison or an enemy.

My body was my friend.

A few notes: I believe that God does call us to do hard things for His glory and the good of others and that sometimes we get complacent. I support doing hard things and stepping out of our comfort zones, and I believe that doing hard things can lead to us becoming stronger. The key is to make sure we're “resourced” when we do that. An example is exercising. To build a muscle, you first have to break it down through exercise, but it is in rest that the muscle actually grows back stronger. Rest is the “resource” in this example.

I also believe that sometimes intense treatment is needed to help cure a patient. This post is not to say that things like chemotherapy or aggressive antibiotic treatment are not at times necessary. I just wish I had been better resourced when I was undergoing my treatments and recognized what I was experiencing as trauma. I am unsure whether the antibiotics were necessary for me, but that is not the point of this article.

Disclaimer: I am not a doctor, therapist, or medical professional. The content in this post is not medical advice.