The Body Keeps Score and I’m Tired of Its Numbers

Maybe it’s not our thoughts but our questions that change our reality

The memory taunts and haunts me. Every year I resolve to lose weight and exercise. I’m exhausted from carrying the pounds of the overweight world on my shoulders.

As part of my new membership package, I walked on the treadmill with a stroll and a friendly conversation with a personal trainer. She had control of the speed and incline buttons and would gently increase them.

Then it happened.

My breathing became rapid yet shallow, almost gasping. My heart knocked on the walls of my chest, trying to escape. The beads of sweat designed their necklace on my brow. Sheer terror filled my veins yet froze my legs. I told her to stop, and she didn’t. Her words are still like a knife in my psyche.

“Come on. You can do it. Push through it. It’s normal!” It echoed through my thoughts as church bells rang between my ears. I screamed “STOP NOW” as I slapped her hand away from the controls. Her eyes of disbelief stared at me as I melted into a puddle of tears. The voice in my head whispering, “for christ’s sake, you’re in a gym, not the castle of terror.”

I looked at the poor young girl and said, “my heart rate was at 152.” She stumbled over her words and asked,” How did you know that?” Calmly I told her that is the number that always triggers panic attacks.

While the description of how my body was responding is typical for vigorous exercise, it is the place that triggers my body’s fear response to past trauma. The body’s memory wins out no matter my state of mind, present moment thoughts, or attitude.

The gym incident was twenty-five years ago, but my body still responds like that today, not as intense, but the physical reactions still linger.

The top New Year resolutions consistently are losing weight, exercising more, eating healthier, and saving money. Most of these promises do not survive the first month, sometimes not even the first days of a new year.

I gave up making resolutions years ago, as I felt they only set me up for failure. I created an acronym for goals — good orderly actions leading (to) success. That didn’t help either. I’ve spent thousands of dollars on books, diets, gyms, financial success, and changing habits. I should have just saved the money instead and achieved that goal.

My pursuit for healing, myself and others, is the marathon I continue to run. It leaves a lot of unanswered questions. However, have I genuinely not answered these difficult interrogatories, or do they remain unsatisfied out of fear?

“The unexamined life is not worth living.” — Socrates

Louise Hay

With no formal degree or title, Louise Hay became the best-selling author in history.

Her books, Heal Your Life, You Can Heal Your Body, and The Power is Within You, changed my life in so many positive ways. Of course, I practiced skepticism for quite a while and would test the theories, trying to prove them wrong — or perhaps I suffered from a sort of denial.

While affirmations are a large part of what she is known for, the thoughts about and healing of our bodies’ information fascinate me. When I have an illness or significant health issue, I use her book as a resource to help me discover the source of my contributing thought. 100 % of the time, it has validity with respect to my current moments. As recently as September, when I had double pneumonia, the reference in the book said the disease could result from fear, depression — a fear of taking in life, not feeling worthy of living life fully. Ironically, I had asked my doctor a few weeks before to reinstate my antidepressant prescription. Moreover, when I looked back, I had just again joined a gym in August and written an article for the Medium Challenge:

While I try not to let the stats affect me, this one did. Even though it was one of my first articles chosen for further distribution, it received 38 views, under 200 claps, and two comments from my writing mentor. It took me until my heavy year-end contemplation to see the body memories triggered. Four months. That is when I turned back to my old faithful author, Louise Hay.

Rereading her book The Power is Within You, this paragraph slapped me square in the face:

“When I found my metaphysical pathway, I covered up my feelings with a nice layer of spirituality and held a lot of garbage in. I put a wall around myself that literally kept me out of touch with my feelings.” (can I say — Yellow Brick Wall)

Bessel van der Kolk

Bessel van der Kolk, author of the book “The Body Keeps Score,” says: “When our senses become muffled, we no longer feel fully alive.”

So how do we unmuffle our senses when the body acts on its own accord?

Ten years ago, I dealt with my lifelong binge eating disorder through mindfulness and changing my relationship with food.

Now it’s time to dig deeper.

Physical self-awareness is the first step in releasing the tyranny of the past. — Bessel van der Kolk

Mainstream methods have not worked for me. As I enter into this newfound awareness with questions bouncing around like a pinball in my brain, I know answers will reveal themselves. While researching this topic, my rabbit hole surfing leads me to a few new discoveries.

Psychologist William James is said to have shaped our understanding of the psychology of habit. In 1884, yes 1884, he discussed the theory of how our bodies affect our feelings with psycho-emotional infrastructures. He was the first educator to offer a psychology course. He was the godson of Ralph Waldo Emerson. During his years at Harvard, he was part of an informal group called The Metaphysical Club with Wendall Oliver Holmes, Charles Pierce, and Chauncey Wright. All were pragmatics who sought to define truth and resolve metaphysical issues. (Wikipedia)

The rabbit hole also revealed information on the Triune Brain and a book titled, The General Theory of Love, by Thomas Lewis MD, Fairi Amini MD, and Richard Lannon MD. (aw, another powerful circle of 3). Combine all this with another book in my Kindle library, Brene Brown’s Atlas of the Heart; I think the universe served up some good direction.

In Summary

When I was frustrated and stuck last night with how this article was going, I set it aside, but a poem pushed its way onto the page:

body memories painful sensations roaring heartbeats pounding loud uncontrolled pulse rate rises I don’t want to feel the pain

Danger alarms sounds stay outside the skins’ limits can I make it stop it has a will of its own come to your senses bells ring

weakness overwhelms head heart cohesion fails me body needs saving spirit and mind strong as ox the temple is still crumbling

For 2022, I can see Poetry is the catalyst for beginning to feel the emotions in my heart. Matters of the heart (back with William James) were matters only for the arts — poetry, literature, song, dance, etc. My prior years of habitually writing streams of consciousness no longer pull on the strings of my heart. The structure of the Tanka is luring me to another path. My poetic words flow on the syllable counter and allow me a safe space to practice feeling and expressing my emotions. It is the pattern that beats in rhythmic flow and distracts me from the body scorecard.

Where intellect and emotions clash, the heart often has the greater wisdom. — taken from The General Theory of Love

What questions do you ask that create your reality? What author or artist has had a significant impact on your life? Does your body keep score? Share these with me…. I want to know how you practice your emotions.

Here are a few of my end of year posts

Or perhaps a little poetry to enjoy