Two Weeks Post-Op

"Time heals all wounds," they say. But also deep sleep, good food, gentle movement and lavish love. I am constantly amazed at how much better I am; each day I can tell a difference.

But it is decidedly odd to be so intimate with my digestive system. Colons are not common conversation; they are to be tucked away discreetly and taken for granted. Well - not this colon, not now and it's fascinating to be confronted repeatedly with evidence and consequence of every single thing I put into my mouth. I've lost the graceful cushion of my body. Instead of a system that compensates and forgives little indiscretions, this current system demands much more of my careful, constant attention.

I am a pretty private person. I know that in my writing and in my preaching, I can be fairly self-disclosing sometimes but I'm always clear where my line is and I rarely cross over into true vulnerability. That's probably due to my personality; an Enneagram Nine, I figure. An Introvert. So I'm pondering my new reality where this hidden, physical part of me is so exposed. I'm pondering the inter-relationship and inter-connection of my physical and my emotional/spiritual being.

The Enneagram tells me I am a "gut" person: I understand the world not primarily by way of my thinking or my feeling but rather by way of some deep, instinctual process. All of us have "gut reactions" but evidently we Eights, Nines and Ones experience life as a kind of gut reaction most of the time. I don't quite understand this but I'm trying. I would much rather be a "head" person,  analyzing my world with a cool, dispassionate rationality. But no - I'm very aware that I am someone who feels things in her gut, who understands (or often misunderstands) things by some deep, reflexive process that defies reason.

So is there a connection to this way of living life by my gut and this life threatening blockage that snuck up on me and shut my gut down? I don't know. Part of my current ponderings.

I'm re-reading Bill Moyers' Healing and the Mind (1993). The science is surely dated these 20+ years later but the conversations are intriguing and all these scientists assure us that - yes - there clearly is a connection between our physical and our emotional. Biochemist Candace Pert said:

"The mind is some kind of enlivening energy in the information realm throughout the brain and body that enables the cells to talk to each other, and the outside to talk to the whole organism."

The "mind" exists not only in the brain, she insists, but in every single cell in the body. All our emotions reside in the body, are stored throughout the body and are triggered by chemical receptors in the cells in response to various events.

"Moods and attitudes that come from the realm of the mind transform themselves into the physical realm through the emotions."

How does this science correlate to my being a "gut" person? I don't know. So many questions.

Generally I love the questions; they have been my salvation again and again. But these days I'm grateful I'm not burdened with unhelpful, unanswerable questions like: "why me?" This is mine - for whatever reason. I will bear it. I will learn from it. I will grow.

And I will definitely encounter each day with a sharper awareness and a deeper gratitude than ever before. Every day as I grow stronger, I am cultivating thankfulness - for time to heal, deep sleep, good food, gentle movement and lavish love. And for the amazing grace of the One who is ever working all things together for the good of all.