Anger at the Body and Acceptance

I had a restless night last night and many vivid dreams.  I woke frequently in pain and had to grab the bottom edge of the mattress to pull myself over to my other side because I was too stiff to just roll over.  I remember hearing myself groaning and grumbling every time I woke.   I remember taking on a distance from myself, and thinking how pitiful that sounded, and I felt disgusted with myself.

Garlic sprouting in my garden

I woke feeling fine this morning, apart from the usual stiffness.  But the morning walk was difficult; my legs felt like rubber bands and I had to stop to rest every twenty feet or so.  It helps to lock my knees as much as possible so that my leg muscles can rest.  About half way through the walk, first my left foot and then my right started to get pins and needles and go numb.

All around me was beauty.  The air was still and clear, and though there was still a bit of a chill in it,  it had that feel that lets you know that the day will be a warm one.  Everything, all the surfaces, seemed to open themselves up to the sky.

Amidst this beauty, I felt anger at my body, and frustration at its intrusion into my appreciation of the natural world, its inability to do what it is supposed to do.  I want my body to do its work, and to stay under the level of my awareness, except as it brings me pleasure.  When it doesn't work this way, I  rage at it, at myself.  I know that practicing acceptance of this is the most effective way to cope, but often I just can't find it in me.  Trying to achieve acceptance is reminiscent of the times when I was younger, and I tried to bend spoons and move objects with my mind.  I always felt that if I could just find the right mental attitude, I could do it.  It's like when you try to think your arm into moving by getting yourself into just the right mental state.  You try and you try and nothing happens, and then suddenly it moves, when you feel like you stopped trying.  What did you do or what did you stop doing?  It's impossible to say.

That's the way I feel about acceptance of pain and the anger, frustration, and self-disgust that accompany it.