Love Letter to My Body

“This is adapted from a post I wrote 3 years ago. I will be turning 45 this month and the more time passes, the deeper my love and acceptance for my self, my body, and my children. Happy Mother’s Day to Mothers everywhere <3 ”

One day, draped over me, Max playfully touched my breast, a fading instinct from three years of breastfeeding. He refers to my breasts as mama and me as mom. I pushed his hand away and gave him a stern look. He asked, “Mom, how old are your mamas?” “My mamas,” I replied with a certain nostalgia, “are 42 years old.” He continued, “Mom, “how old is your cheek?” as he brushed his hand against it. “My cheeks are 42 years old.” “Mom, how old are your feet?” “My feet are 42 years old.” “Mom,” now with a giggle, “how old is your butt?” “My butt, is 42 years old.” And on and on to other body parts.

When he left, I felt somehow reunited with my body in a way that I hadn’t before. Like a long devoted lover that I had taken for granted, I had forgotten what we had been through, these 42 years. How she’s always been there for me, serving me, protecting me, keeping me company, communicating to me, allowing me to enjoy life and create and make love and give birth and hug and run and dance and swim. About how she always responded to my true needs. How she made me rest and slow down with illness and how she always recovered and was there for me no matter what abuse I put her through.

To listen deeply to one’s body is like listening to anyone one loves, it is to put one’s own agenda aside. And that is not an easy task. Too often I was deafened by my agendas for what my body is supposed to look like and feel like. How she’s supposed to move through the world. What she’s supposed to withstand without complaining and how she’s supposed to perform. With so much agenda, it was difficult to hear what my body was actually feeling, actually communicating to me. When I didn’t listen to my body when she needed rest or nourishment, I ended up in pain and turmoil.

When it is time to lay down and die, my body will tell me to let go. And when that day comes, my wish is that I will continue to love, trust and be in gratitude for her. Even as she seems to be failing, I believe that she knows better than I what is best for me. My body has always told the truth. No matter how I try to hoodwink the world and myself, my body displays plain and simple truths.

I pray that I will listen quietly and surrender. And have the courage let go of the fine companion that has seen me through the trials of this life so that my spirit can finally soar with trust and gratitude. Thank you to the one so close to me I almost forgot her constant presence. And thank you to the silly wise little one who emerged from her to remind me of my mortality.

Love & Community, 

It's all about Pleasure

“You do not have to be good/ You do not have to walkover on your knees /For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting/ You only have to let the soft animal of your body / love what it loves…”

— “Wild Geese” by Mary Oliver

Recently I’ve been talking to my patients about pleasure. The word pleasure triggers a delightful smile…but unfortunately one that fades into embarrassment and discomfort. Pleasure is a complicated topic. It evokes feelings of guilt and resistance and fear of gluttony and hedonism. My patients react with surprise when I suggest that pleasure is a kind of wisdom. The wisdom of the body. If pain is our body’s way of telling us to pay more attention, then pleasure is also an important communication. Pain urges us to interrupt business as usual, slow down, care for and be mindful of our bodies. Pleasure invites us to continue to engage and connect with the wonders of our bodies, to lovingly give our body what it is asking for.  

Pleasure is the enjoyment of the senses: sight, hearing, taste, touch, smell. In Chinese Medicine, our senses are all related to our internal organs and our health. Frequently, when a Chinese herbal formula tastes good to you, it is because it is the medicine (which includes the flavors) that your body needs to regain health. We continue as a species because procreation is pleasurable and having a good sex drive is an indication of robust health. Pleasurable scents, color, and beautiful music are all known to affect our chemistry, stimulating healing.

Sadly, our innate ability to feel pleasure and to trust it as a guiding force is diminishing. As we modernize, we retreat more and more into our minds and inhabit less of our bodies and senses. Much of our day is experienced through a screen where the wisdom of our senses becomes irrelevant. The result is that we become increasingly disconnected from the innate wisdom and the sensual language of our bodies. If we consider ourselves healthy, we use our intellect to prescribe what we think are health promoting diet, exercise and regimens that we superimpose onto our daily living. Pleasure has nothing to do with these prescriptions.If we do not consider ourselves healthy, we feel unable to control our habits, we feel disorderly, undisciplined, out of control and in this scenario if there is any pleasure felt, it is accompanied by guilt. We may even think that our indulgence with pleasure is the problem. In either case, the central and indispensable role of pleasure in guiding us towards a healthier and fuller experience of life is considered off topic or even dangerous.

To experience pleasure fully, we must be willing to be present. We must be willing to embody the wild, irrational landscape of sensations and emotions. We must trust ourselves and find that we are worthy of enjoyment. Pleasure is good. It is aliveness. It is healthy. It is life affirming and self affirming. It is a spontaneous unspoken expression of appreciation, a taking in of our human experience. Pleasure in eating encourages food absorption, pleasure in movement activates endorphins, pleasure in touch releases oxytocin, pleasure in music and beauty soothes our nervous system and stimulates our creative impulses. Pleasure tells a story of who we are and where we come from. Particular tastes in food, beauty, partners, style, music, fragrances celebrates our individualism. When we allow for the full experience of pleasure we are practicing self-love. And health naturally flowers from that.
 
With Pleasure, 

Thuy

What Makes You Come Alive?

We’re so excited to share this community art mural with you all! Come visit the clinic to participate.

“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

— Dr. Howard Thurman

Getting a good night’s sleep makes me come alive. Eating something delicious makes me come alive. Intimacy makes me come alive. My 10 year old’s jokes, the impossible wisdom of my 13 year old and the kisses and cuddles of my 7 year old makes me come alive. Helping someone makes me come alive Humor makes me come alive. Letting myself cry when I am feeling frustrated, angry, sad makes me come alive. Nature makes me come alive. Creating and playing makes me come alive.

Coming alive is connecting and engaging in ways that wake us up to the beauty, fullness and joy of life. It only requires a willingness to make space, to be present and to connect. It centers around one’s most basic feelings and expressions of a human being. Still,many of us cannot make space for these simple life affirming things. We cannot give ourselves the permission to come alive.

Dr. Howard Thurman was an author, educator, mystic, and civil rights leader. He was an inspiration and mentor to Dr. Martin Luther King. His words are not feel good new age words. They are words meant to incite the greatest revolution of all times, the liberation of each of our hearts and minds.

We live in a society that has made coming alive subordinate to our daily ambition. And that ambition has crushed the life out of us without our noticing. It’s the anecdote of how to boil a frog: if you put a frog in hot water, it will jump out but if you put it in cold water and slowly turn up the heat, it will not notice that it is being cooked.This is what ambition is doing to us, slowly draining the life out of us without our noticing.

Daily ambitions are not simply grand plans and schemes. Daily ambitions are the belief that our present state must be sacrificed for something bigger and better in the future. This belief drives us to work long hours, neglect our loved ones, neglect our bodies and disconnect from the present moment. And yet it is commonly reported that at the end of our days, our ambitions remain an elusive mirage only to be replaced by regret. Regret that we did not spend our precious time doing the things that make us come alive.

Coming alive is an act of liberation and an act of courage. It can be as small as choosing to put bubbles in your bath, as serious as speaking a long held truth, as fulfilling as writing your novel, as silly as having a water balloon fight with your kids, as passionate as declaring your love to someone for the first time, as moving as pouring your heart out in prayer, or as defiant as using your body to protect and defend the water. Whatever it is, it is an act of self love and a connection with life.

Coming alive is jumping out of the pot before it’s too late. It’s risking scrutiny and judgement, challenging the voices that question our worth, our value, our right to come alive now, in the present moment. Too often, people’s response to my urging has been, but how can I come alive when all around me are endless struggles, suffering and injustices? And to that I say, it is precisely because of this that you must come alive.

Come alive to bring more light into the world. Come alive so there this more beauty, more joy, more connection in the world. Come alive in response to the gift of life your ancestors passed on to you. Come alive so that the children can know what aliveness is as they grow up. Come alive so that our Nation, our world knows that true liberty belongs to us all.

In community,

Thuy