What My Body Said When My Mind Wouldn’t Listen
My mind said, “I’m not worried about anything.” My stomach said, “Excuse me?”
It happened the morning of the school trip. I had packed my bag, eaten toast, and told everyone I was excited. I really thought I was. Then, on the bus, a hard little knot formed beneath my ribs, my shoulders crept up toward my ears, and my hands started doing a small, nervous dance in my lap.
“I’m fine,” I told my mind. “It’s just a trip.”
My body did not accept this. It kept sending messages anyway: a flutter, a tight jaw, a breath that stopped halfway down. It was like having a very loyal friend who does not speak, only knocks on the wall.
Why does my stomach hurt when nothing is wrong?
Am I sick?
Why can’t I make it stop?
The messenger
I told Zoe at the museum, in front of a very large dinosaur, which seemed appropriate. She listened with her head tilted, and then she said something that I have thought about nearly every day since.
“Maybe your body’s not the problem. Maybe it’s the messenger.”
“The messenger?”
“Your brain says ‘fine,’ your body says ‘not exactly.’ It’s trying to tell you something. Everyone thinks the tummy ache is the enemy, but it’s just very bad at texting.”
I laughed, and the knot loosened, by a hair.
· · ·
Asking the knot
Zoe’s next idea was so simple that I almost refused it. “Put your hand where it hurts,” she said. “Then ask it what it needs. Out loud, if nobody’s watching.”
We walked out to a bench under a big maple tree behind the museum. I put my hand on my stomach, like checking a sleeping cat, and whispered, “What do you need?”
I waited. And, to my great surprise, the answer arrived, in a plain, body sort of language: Water. And to let go of my shoulders.
“Water,” I said. “And I think I’ve been holding my shoulders up for two hours.”
Zoe handed me her bottle. “Okay. Drop them.”
I dropped them. It felt like setting down a suitcase I had forgotten I was carrying.
The check-in
I’d love to say that my stomach never hurts anymore. It does, sometimes, especially before new things. But I have a different relationship with it now. I treat it like a friend with a lot to say, not an enemy to silence.
It goes like this: Where is it? What does it feel like? What does it need? Water, usually. A slow breath. A stretch. Sometimes to say out loud, “I’m a little nervous about tomorrow,” and then it quiets down, as if it just wanted to be heard.
At night, I sit with a warm mug, one hand on my stomach, and I breathe slowly until I can feel the knot unwind, like yarn on a tired cat.
The museum trip, by the way, was wonderful. The dinosaur was enormous. I ate a very good sandwich. And my body, which had warned me to slow down, got to enjoy it too.
With love,
Lina
