Crafting Your Body Story as Spiritual Practice

As a writer, I spend my days reading and writing, clocking ample time at my computer screen. Several years ago, I started wearing reading glasses and had not been back to see the eye doctor since. To tend to the health of my eyes, it was time. I returned, expecting her to give me a slightly stronger prescription for my readers. The appointment did not, however, go as expected.

         After a series of familiar tests, she took a deep breath and said, “I think it’s time for progressives.”

         “Really?” I blurted, shocked. “So, I have to wear glasses all of the time?”

         “Once you adjust, I think you are really going to like it.”

Trying on frames, I was reeling a bit. Somehow progressive lenses threw me. Glasses reminded me of my aging body and ultimately my mortality. Once I started wearing glasses I would not be able to stop.  Am I old now? Depreciating? I caught myself spiraling and took a deep breath. What body story could I tell instead that brings freedom, agency, and joy? 

Writing my body’s story as spiritual practice started when I was thirteen. I crashed on a tumbling pass at gymnastics practice before a big meet. The injury to my left elbow was severe. During my grueling recovery, I was frustrated with my seemingly slow progress back to health. At a checkup, the doctor decided to tell me that in the emergency room, he almost had to amputate my arm. The dislocated limb had cut off blood flow to my hand, and they struggled to revive my pulse.

I could have one arm, but, against the odds, I have two. In that moment, the trauma to my elbow didn’t change. The story I told about my elbow trauma changed, and that changed my life. To this day, I live as embodied gratitude, knowing that my left arm is a gift.

My body has a story, and it’s part of God’s story.

Writing is a spiritual practice for me. It invites me to notice and pay attention. It encourages me to stay awake to my life and live from my center. Writing is a tool of embodiment for me. It deepens my embodied spirituality, which I believe honors my Creator. For years now, I have invited my writing, theology, and yoga students to join me in crafting and sharing the stories of their bodies. I encourage peacemakers to make peace in their own bodies, to start the revolution in their beings. Simple but not easy, crafting our body story is rigorous, vulnerable, and profound work. My newest book, The Embodied Path, presents a curated selection of these body stories and invites the reader to join in the work of claiming their body’s story for healing and wholeness. There is a myriad of benefits to the spiritual practice of reflective, embodied writing. 

Over years of working with people on the craft, four benefits rise to the surface:

• First, crafting our body stories forges meaning and expands identity. Many things happen to us that do not make sense. We get sick, we get assaulted, we live with depression. Writing our stories will not make sense of these things, but over time, they can make meaning. The stories we tell reveal why we think our lives are worth living, adding dignity and hope. We become the narrators, and our sense of freedom and agency expands. This narrative repair can bring healing. I could have crafted an elbow story that focused on what my body could no longer do, blaming the injury and dwelling in bitterness.  The story I did craft around my elbow injury, conversely, deepened my gratitude for my arm and empowered me to celebrate what my body could do instead of dwell on its limitations.

• Second, crafting our body stories carves out space to process trauma. Healing is hard, but so is not healing. Turning toward our bodies with curiosity and reverence, we can honor what our bodies have been through. When we are ready to metabolize the pain, on the other side there might be words that form a story that recovers the past in a way that leads to release and reunion. A year after my elbow injury, the tumbling pass I crashed on was once again in my floor routine. I could have ignored my left elbow and tried to suppress the fear and sadness that welled up inside of me. I could have tried to override the trauma in my body. Instead, crafting a story around my elbow injury carved out space for me to metabolize the trauma, acknowledge what my body went through, and build trust between my mind and my body again. 

• Third, crafting our body stories dismantles the hierarchical separation between the mind and the body. Plato and the Stoics were skeptical of the body. The highest places in society were held by elite men who did the work of the mind while women and laborers were seen as doing the inferior work of the body. Mind-body dualism still exists today in our widely disembodied society and church. We see the harm and destruction it brings in pushing ideas without empathy and prioritizing profit over the well being of people’s bodies. Mind-body dualism perpetuates lines that divide us by race, class, gender, and sexuality instead of expanding our collective belonging and healing. God created our bodies very good, and Jesus’ ministry ushered in wholeness for marginalized bodies. I believe God is calling our church to dissolve mind-body dualism and create faithful embodied communities where all bodies feel a sense of safety and belonging.

• Fourth, sharing our body narratives can shift the limiting narratives perpetuated by society. We have dominant narratives in our society that justify oppression and maintain the status quo. Our body stories can put pressure on these narratives to expand our policies so that one day all bodies can feel a safe sense of belonging. Several folks I interviewed for The Embodied Path told stories of how they felt sidelined and othered by society’s stories about which bodies belong. Fardosa was told by strangers to go home, that she didn’t belong because she was Somali. Linda didn’t tell her fellow nuns she was a lesbian for years, fearing she would be asked to leave her beloved community. Each time proper accommodations are not made for Rebecca, who is in a wheelchair, she has to remind herself that she is not the problem, the system is. They shared their stories with me in hopes that readers will increase their awareness and compassion and support policies that build a society where all bodies can thrive. 

Hearing and understanding each other’s body stories will accompany us toward personal and communal peace.

A few days ago, my new glasses came in. I put them on and immediately felt like a new person. The fall leaves were bright with letting go. The words of my favorite book were crisp. Everything around me was in focus. I had new eyes. I have always thought of faith as a lens we use to see the world. When I was thirteen, I could have crafted a body story about my arm that cast me as a victim who can’t straighten her arm fully. Instead, I crafted a body story that cast me as a girl who has two arms and planned to do amazing things with them. I took on the lens of gratitude.

I looked at myself in the mirror through the lenses of my new glasses and began to craft a body story about the sacredness of noticing the moment right in front of me in detail with great attentiveness and compassion. I smiled and gave thanks to God for my eyes.

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