Mind and Body

A healthy mind in a healthy body. Like most people, I took the two for granted. But finding my way back to both has very literally been the task for me this summer.

On a bright and sunny afternoon in July and within the span of a few hours, I was suddenly unable to sit. Or lie down. In fact, all I could do to keep my spine, my legs, my entire frame from hurting immensely, was stumble around. And so I did. I limped to the doctor – who diagnosed a herniated disk – and asked for painkillers. After meddling about for a few days, I was handed some opiate, which made a friend nurse who works with terminally ill patients, lift her eyebrows and claque her tongue. ‘Heavy stuff,’ she said. ‘I wouldn’t take them any longer than necessary.’

These pills finally worked. I was relieved to be able to sleep again with that suddenly estranged body of mine. Everything sort of drifted away, just out of reach. A foggy wall had been pulled up between the rest of the world and me. With the urgency of all things gone, I found myself no longer worried about anything. Not about the state of the world, nor things from my to-do-list that absolutely had to be done. Having the MRI-scan was a breeze, seeing my poor spine and the source of all my misery on the specialists’ screen remained strangely abstract. I thought this was actually quite nice: my control-freak behavior had evaporated. It felt liberating.

Until I noticed I could no longer focus, not on a book, not on a story someone told me. Focusing on anything for more than half an hour had become impossible. I could not read, let alone be creative myself. Not one original idea submerged from the river deep within. It had run dry, its waters were nowhere to be found. All I could do for weeks was walk around the house carrying an iPad, and watch old episodes of tv series on YouTube. All attention for detail was gone. When I could not remember one afternoon if I had taken my pill, this situation started to scare me.

As soon as I had recovered enough for the pain to recede to tolerable levels, I stopped using those pills. Cold turkey. For about a week my nerves felt high-strung, which was awful. I could sympathize with drug-addicts trying to kick the habit. I now was one too. But through the almost intolerable frailness of my nervous system, I could feel the sharpness of my mind return. When I closed my eyes, the images started to come back. After that period of silence, they came in huge numbers and with an unknown urgency. Roaring waters started to fill the riverbed and ideas streamed into my head again.

I now know that a clear mind is not a fixed given.

Nor is a healthy body. Balancing the two is something I was never very good at. To be honest I think I’ve always lived mostly in my head, and took this body of mine for granted. Like most of us I took care of it. I ran, I trained my body and even took yoga for years. But all in a detached way, without truly feeling my body or listening to the feedback it gave me. And so when it was left no choice, my body it pulled the emergency brakes and made a full-stop.

All’s well now. And I’ve learned my lesson. In fact, quite a few lessons this summer. So these days I stop my mind now and then to check in on my body. Starting with my feet, I focus on how they feel, warm, in my woolen socks. I work my way up and feel my knees touch and my buttocks rest on a hard chair. I make sure my spine has a delicate curve. It feels strong and trustworthy again. I think I’ll go for a little run now, to clear my head.

I’m so happy to be back.