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How My Brain Tumor Got Into My Head

11/17/2021

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Dear Teton Char,

We share a friend. Andrea and I met when we were 14. You live near her now, in the Tetons. She tells me you asked how my brain tumor got there. You and I have never physically met, just as I never met your sister whose brain tumor eventually led to her body's death. But my heart mourns your loss. I honor you as a woman and sister. So I'm here to answer your question. 
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When my tumor was discovered through an MRI, the neurosurgeon assigned to my case told me, "It could have been growing for 10-20 years." 

I named her Fidela. Somehow, to me, she was my friend. As was Dr. Lewis Hou, whose Buddhist nature shone through his eyes and silently said, You can trust me to get that tumor out. 

So when he offered the options: 1) We can do nothing. 2) Neurosurgery. 3) Chemo. 4) Radiation... My response to him was, "Let's go in. Let's get it out." Though Fidela was my friend, she wasn't meant to stay inside my brain. 
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"We don't know why it's there," said Dr. Hou. 

That was fine. I didn't need him or western medicine to know. I knew why Fidela came.

Right or wrong don't belong in this place. My story isn't "right" -- it's simply mine. In 2006 I did a workshop called It's All Made Up. Its lesson landed. We make up the story, the why, the reasons things happen in our lives. While science is useful, continuously, it disproves itself. Factual, material "realities" are consistently rewired, reworked, rewoven. Just like the human brain. 

Fidela was my body's latest and most effective attempt to get my attention. It was a piercing cry, a roar, a terrorized plead, a prayer from a body who knew she was worthy of being held by loving arms.  

I had a lifelong addiction to sugar and food. As a baby, my big feelings were met sometimes with EQ's tender, loving arms and gentle words. Other times, I was given sugar -- with no blame or judgment of my parents or others who would pass me "a treat" to soothe my cries -- I was given toxic and highly addictive pain killers called sugar. 

My brain had been wired by mine and others' choices,
​to outsource peace. 
​


​All through adolescence, into college and as I became a mother, I turned to the pleasure of ice cream and other sugar-laden foods to soothe my insides. Instead of feeling the pain of my "negative" or tough emotions, I turned to pleasure for my eyes, tongue and palate. 
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I knew this was causing problems, like being overweight most of my Life, but I didn't know that by the time I was in my mid-40s, I would start to greet paralysis. ​
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From the instant she was conceived, my body was my best friend. Sure I had others -- human and divine -- but my body was unshakably devoted. Never, ever flinching in her masterful communication. We humans are given this -- being in a body can be awkward or awful sometimes, yet we are always given masterful communication from it. Complaining is senseless. 

Starting in 2015, my body tried five years of monthly Pain Level 10 migraines, to get my attention. I thought she was just asking for exercise, acupuncture and healthy eating. And maybe, if I had chosen to commit to that path of complete self-care, Fidela would have shrunk and disappeared. 

But I wasn't ready then. 

So after five years, the migraines stopped. They weren't working. My body knew she needed to get louder. So she starting to take away the things I loved most. 

I could no longer write legibly. I couldn't throw frisbee well. Highly skilled with both writing and frisbee, two of the great joys of my Life were now evaporating. I was in preschool again. 

That got my attention. I wanted to live with my daughter. I wasn't ready to die. 

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So on February 16th, Dr. Hou led a team of eight through a 9-hour anesthetized surgery to remove Fidela from my brain. She was benign, and when my head was closed up with 52 titanium staples, she was smaller than a grain of rice. 

My tumor came to teach me a lesson I've been studying since birth: I am made of Love. 

Bodies that cough excessively might be trying to tell us to stop smoking cigarettes. Being obese might be a signal toward play, greater ease and lightness. When we've forgotten that we're made of Love, our bodies won't cease in their attempts to help us remember.

It's true for all of us, yet we forget. I believe that's why we came into these bodies. Yes, Life's amazing. Yes, bodies offer galactic joy and dancing makes my heart soar. Still, we are an expression of consciousness that believes we're separate from the divine, when actually the opposite is true. We ARE made of Love. We are here to remember. 
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I've personally never resonated with "Fuck Cancer." To me, the body conveys Love so pristinely -- whether horrifically painful and scary or not -- that I can't use violent words to greet mine. Or anyone's. ​Fidela represented sheer devotion to my remembrance that I am Love. Whether my body died on February 16th in surgery, or stayed alive, I am meant to remember. 

It's now 9 months into this 2nd Life, as I call it. Near death has given me Second Life Eyes. 

I again feel like a toddler as far as your sister. I don't know what to say. No words will suffice. I am so, so sorry for the pain of your loss. I trust you remember her daily and somehow, some way, are finding a path of seeing and feeling her presence outside the physical form. Human mortality is so very sad. We're being shown that, asked to accept our mortality so we can live each day more fully, through the Covid/human immune system pandemic. And even though there is a Big Lesson here.. .it's still got a shit-ton of sadness in it. There's no escape from this truth. We live on a sad planet, as my Reiki Master said, so... guess what? 

We are here to find joy, to play, to laugh, as our friend Andrea and I have been doing wildly since we were 14. We are here to lean into Light, as much as we possibly can. You know this. ​

You live and play in one of the most breathtaking places on Mother Earth's lap. You're a friend of Andrea, one of the most playful souls I've ever met. In the 32 years I have known her, she has never failed to embody respect for her physical temple -- through what she eats, how she moves and the laughter she treats like church. 

I write to you today, dear Char, like this letter is a hug. Not just for you, but for your sister, for Andrea, for her daughter Piia and my daughter Helena. This is a letter for Womanhood -- to keep rising into the bliss and splendor of being in a body. While we're here, heck, let's make the most of it. 

Love,
Jessica
​(Andrea calls me Dork Dong because... she can SEE, and she's hilarious!) 
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Investing in Rebirth: Womanhood, Humanity

11/16/2021

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When you live through bodily pain as severe as I have, you get really good at asking for help. As with all the ways you express your authentic self, you give yourself permission — with no shame and totally willing to hear "no" as an answer, unrattled. You don't let the fact that you're out of pain, no longer needing severe opiates to cut the horror in your thigh, lead you to stop flexing Love's ask-for-help muscle. 

You ask for help in service of your own, one, precious Life.
You ask for help in service of HUMANITY. 


I'm here today to ask for help launching my project, RebirthHer. I am ready to serve, expressing this vision in our world that d-e-s-p-e-r-a-t-e-l-y needs it. Yes — it's for something much bigger than me. (Ready to donate already? Great! Go here.)
"Right now data is showing us and diverse organizations agree that investing in and empowering women is the fastest way we can solve all global problems. And as a collective force, Women will be able to overturn dictatorships, shift whole economies, lead new innovations and restore the earth."

​Jensine Larsen, founder, World Pulse ​​
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My goal is to raise $1,975 through GofundMe by the end of the day today, November 16th. Today marks nine months from  brain surgery and near death, and my launch goal honors that I was born on International Women's Day (March 8th) in International Women's Year (1975). Funds will cover some of my time launching this project. 

Ready for chills all over your body? Here's a 2.5-minute film on why this matter, from Bioneers' Everywoman's Leadership.

​And what does it look like when women own our power?
"...coming into our bodies through touch, dance, not asking permission… defying authority… where we trust the mystical, the emotional and erotic as much as we trust the intellectual and political, and understand that their integration is not only the catalyst for revolution, but it may in fact be the revolution itself." 

Eve Ensler, founder, One Billion Rising
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Whether you donate money or share this on social media to help spread the word... thank you for supporting RebirthHer!

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My Shortest Blog Post Ever

4/17/2019

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Mothers hold... so much.

​I see it, I'm stunned by it, I try to grasp why mothers' work is so undervalued and... 

How the heck could it be so hard for us mamas to articulate the "all" of what we do, and hold? and...

I'm left speechless. 

But I'll find words soon. Because it's a really, really big important deal. 

Stay tuned. 

And if you're a devoted mama? I see you. I see all that you hold. You are doing the great work. Thank you. 
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Café Sisterhood

11/11/2018

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Dear Forrest,

A week after Donald Trump was elected. I walked into the café, ready to order my cappuccino, and there you stood.


Rather than sharing café small talk, you asked how I was doing and I knew you didn’t want to hear, “Fine.” You didn’t want to hear an answer that superficially informed you of where I was going next. You wanted to know how I was really doing, and it showed in the warm presence in your eyes and the spaciousness in your heart.


​That’s just your way. You actually, really care. 
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I had been numbing myself. Until that morning when I saw you, hiding in my own escapist ways from the shock of what had just happened on the national stage. Suddenly, in your presence, the tears emerged. Standing there by the espresso machine, I cried out some of my despair. It needed to happen.

Within minutes, thanks to that moment of opening, I made a decision that led to the biggest adventure of my life so far. My family and I would move to Sweden for a year to be near my husband’s family in his native culture. Your open heart, attentive eyes, and deep capacity for listening were the container I needed to really hear what wanted to happen. Looking back now, almost two years after that café conversation, I see that it was one of the best decisions I ever made.


I’m not putting you on a pedestal. You wouldn’t accept that from me. I’m not saying you made the decision for me.


I’m saying that in your strikingly beautiful presence, I was able to live my truth in a way I might not have been able to without you. Every mother needs this kind of presence in her life.


Think about it. Right now there is a mother reeling from last night’s drunk abuse, somewhere in America. Right now there is a mother whose child is dying in a hospital bed. Right now there is a mother so lost and lonely she doesn’t know if there is a way out. In fact, there are millions of these.


All these mothers could use a presence as spacious and honest as yours. Thank you for being the way you are. May all these mothers  find — now — what you showed me that morning.


And may I be a sliver in life, for others, of what I find in you.


In deep respect,

Jessica

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The Confident Light of a Woman

10/3/2018

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It was 1996. I was at a college party with the usual dynamics at play. Youngsters flirting and flaunting goofy theatrical dance moves, getting into conversations deeper and looser than those that happen sober. The hotness factor was high, hormones ripe and bodies ready. We were 20-something adults from Marin and Southern California, living in Chico for an education and to party, in good shape with stylish clothes.
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My two housemates at the time were San Diego beach-born and -raised, pretty and full of spice. One of them had mentioned her name before. Piper. A girl she didn’t like much for whatever reason.


I had learned in high school not to like or dislike others because of what someone else said. I hadn’t met Piper yet.

And then she came shining.

I didn’t know who I was seeing at the time. What I saw was a young woman whose confidence lit up the room like fire.

Her humor wasn’t the kind used for distraction or avoidance. Her words weren’t used to impress anyone else. Her ways seemed to come from a deeper well. Hers was the kind of confidence that other girls wanted, not the temporary boost gained from mascara or a fresh tan. I was stopped. I fell in love. Her soul captivated me. My respect for her ways and choices led me to aim within myself for more confidence, too. Her name was Piper.


Twenty-two years later, she remains one of my closest friends. Our friendship has ebbed and flowed as great ones do, and through it all she has beamed. She is a shining ray of rooted woman confidence that comes from deep within herself, tapped into the divine.

Through my 13-month postpartum depression, with all its riveting questions and despair, it was Piper who helped me realize that I parent by instinct. Beyond attachment parenting, mothers can honor our instincts — ancient, clear and piercingly beautiful — and this was the way I was meant to mother. Accepting this has given me freedom I couldn’t find anywhere else. I was fortunate to have a lighthouse to look to. In Piper’s confident claiming of her own parenting style, I found mine.

Being witness to this kind of confidence in a woman during my 20s gave me a renewed sense of what is possible for women. Five years ago when I gave birth, a strike of lightning reaffirmed this possibility. When women wake up to our own power, astonishing beauty unfolds. Our power lies in no one else’s hands.

If I could show every teenage or 10-year-old girl what it’s like to feel deep inner confidence like I’ve seen in Piper, I’d wave my wand and do it fast. No soap opera Kavanaugh courtrooms could live in that universe.

On this day, her birthday, I bow to the willingness in my friend Piper. And I bow to the willingness in a woman, every woman, when she chooses to lead from the power within her.

If you have a woman friend like this, call her now! She is actively creating a world in which women are valued.

Happy Birthday, friend. Your willingness to open to the divine and let it lead your life makes my head and my hips shake with wonder. I love you past the soft rolling hills of Denmark and into the furthest peppery galaxies!


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The Big Tall Call of Mothering

8/25/2018

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Originally published in Natural Parent magazine July 12, 2018

Recently in a greeting card mailed to me by a wise and long-time friend, she wrote that I “more singularly identify with being a mother” than any other mama friend she has. My initial inner response was, Oh great, am I weird in yet one more way in life? Does that mean she thinks I’m boring now? Have I gotten lost in the dance of mothering, and given up on my other passions?

Within moments, my little self-doubt voices dissipated. Her words then struck me as a powerful invoking of reflection about the last five years of my life.

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Let me call myself out, to begin. Curiosity is powerful in relationships and I have not yet asked this dear friend what she meant by “singularly identified”. Letter writing is a slow exchange, more spacious than talking or texts, and my next letter to her will include a question seeking to understand what she expressed from her bold, loving heart.

According to standard definitions, I could interpret what she said as this: I am more remarkably, extraordinarily, and exceptionally identify as a mother than any other mama friend she has. Sounds like a big, kind compliment, right?

My friend’s bold way of showing me love in her letter left me with a feeling of pride about how I mother. Her words felt like a spotlight on a stage where I am dancing the awkward, passionate, indescribably rewarding dance of being a mama. So that is what I will respond to here, as I know many of you reading this have your own way of shining in your very own mothering stage.

On the surface being a mother is all about playgrounds, naps, tantrums, cuddling  and a giving-up of self.

Right beneath it, there appears a mountaintop presenting to a mother some of  the richest and most fertile personal expansion terrain available in life.

It has been said our children are our greatest teachers. To actually experience this in life can be fascinating, blissful and grueling at times. We can pay money for meditation retreats and gurus, yet our children offer astounding spiritual lessons for free on a daily basis. Children are the original gurus.

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And I’m up for that. My religion is Love. In this life I want to shed all my layers of fear and bloom open to what Spirit, what Love, has to offer. Bring it on, little guru.
So it isn’t surprising that life hasn’t let me detract substantial attention from this opportunity in order to “make” other things happen, since my child was born. While I’ve tried to create a stable income flow, I’ve instead seen a path dotted with seemingly random creative output, unstable income and no clear sign of what’s to come. When we are trying to force something to happen, it is a pretty clear sign that it’s not meant to happen right now. It’s just not time.

In a way, motherhood has swallowed me whole. I have allowed it, though, feeling the briefness of this sacred encounter. Years fly. My guru won’t live with me forever.

My top priority is being the mother I am meant to be. It appears the priority is my child, but equally the priority is me giving her the all she deserves… Me welcoming the extraordinary and unmatched opportunity of being spiritually stretched and widened, that she presents to me. It is about me being the fullest version of myself that I can be, expanded by the presence of a being who I love as much as, dare I say, God. Or so it feels that way.

To the friend whose handwritten words led me to this helpful self-reflection, I extend my deep thanks. You see me from a perspective I value. However clumsy and grumpy I may sometimes be, I like who I am as a mother and as silly ol’, perfectly imperfect me.

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The Day Home Came to Get Me

8/8/2018

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It was mid-July and we were preparing to celebrate Sweden’s biggest holiday: Midsummer.

Days were full, with sunrise around 4:00 in the morning, and sunset around 10:00 at night. Children gathered flowers for crown making, and in the kitchen sat mounds of strawberries and a big metal bowl of fresh whipped cream. A cool breeze whirled in the bright sky, the sounds of my daughter squealing in glee with her new friends who lived on this land. We erected a giant Midsummer pole and decorated it with branches, vines and stems of white, purple and yellow flowers.
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My family had been in Sweden for more than 12 months and we were heading home to California in two weeks. Though I knew we’d back in my familiar native land soon, I still stood on Swedish soil 5,200 miles away. Winter’s long, dark days had not been easy.

Then the bus pulled up across the rural road. In the farmland quiet, I heard the front door open and began to watch feet step down onto the roadside gravel. Her black clogs emerged, and with them her gait, which I knew, having walked many miles with her in life. When she reached the back of the bus and turned toward the house where I stood, her face beamed in its born-smiling way and she began to cross the road.  

Emptiness filled my body. I felt as if all the strain of winter’s icy grit and gravel suddenly blew out of me with the cool summer wind.

Was this really happening? Was one of my soul sisters from the past 15 years actually walking towards me? My eyes could see her, yet it was almost hard to believe this was actually happening. Weeks from home, and yet… right here, Serra.


We hugged. There were tears. I didn’t want to let go. Touch is essential for healthy newborns and though we pretend it’s not, it is also essential for healthy adults.

We talked, we ate, we watched our children play together with the usual sense of awe and fortune we feel when it comes to our children. Into the night, we talked more.

Sleep had its restorative way with me, and in the morning I awoke ready to release some of the big feelings that had built up over winter.

Tea mug in hand, I sat on a bar stool at the kitchen counter and Serra sat next to me. Could I really touch her? Was one of my best friends really right next to me, like, in hugging distance? I reached out to hug her, and then the sobbing began. On her shoulder, sobbing, tears all being emptied from many 18-hour days of darkness and more than enough slips on the icy sidewalk. Sobbing out my longing for home. Home had come to get me. ​
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In all my years of looking toward the light we’re made of — which is Love — it has been clear that along a way, I’ve often devalued the body. The physical part, the form. Eh, that’s not who we are, so… Not consciously devaluing the body, but using this lofty spiritual lens to escape from the fact that I am having a human experience, an embodied one — when the truth is, the body matters.

On this day it wasn’t the conversation or the companionship that moved me to sob on her shoulder. It wasn’t her friendship; that was always mine. Through winter I hadn’t felt abandoned by Spirit, as if my friends didn’t love me anymore. None of that intangible stuff was lost.

It was the touch piece. The physical being-with. Her skin, her teeth, her warmth of presence. Her hands brought me home, though we still stood far from our California shores. Her strong, open arms welcomed me back to the feeling of being held — which we all need.   

And so, for being the Home that came to get me, Serra, thank you. You wrote to me in Sweden. We talked when time zone coordination made it happen. You showed up for me. Yet in person, something else showed up that mattered. After every big adventure there awaits a set of arms that offers release and return. After the biggest adventure of my life so far, these arms were yours.

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A Bewildered Sort of Thanks

7/25/2018

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This is #7 in The Motherhood Letters, a monthly feature in the Mothering Arts community by Leaning into Light founder Jessica Rios. Rooted in universal themes of motherhood, Jess shares the essence of her unique art of mothering through letter writing.
Dear Nina,

It’s only been two days since we said goodbye. Our little family of three is jet lagged as expected. Sweden to San Francisco, for us, meant a 26 hour trip. And after every plane I’m in that lands, my heart is wide open. I know I could have died. Life is more lucid than it was the day before.

I’m writing to you because my heart is filled with a bewildered sort of thanks.


It's the kind of thanks that questions why we can’t all be as good at showing up for others, as you are. It is the kind of bewilderment that wonders how I got so blessed to live a life with people like you in it.

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photo by Josh Blanton on Unsplash

Moving to a different continent and culture 5,200 miles away from my California home took a lot of courage. Even though I knew it was the thing to do, the experience presented multiple stretches way outside my comfort zone.

For our entire year there, you lived close by. So close that you saw my first bout with anxiety, when physical circumstances stood my hairs on end because I feared for my daughter Helena’s life. So close that, as her grandfather’s long time wife, you spoke up about it. You felt it, too. You voiced your Mama Bear concern, assuring me that I had a right to be scared. Sometimes we need to be reminded of that. You were that mama for me.


Through your empathy I stood stronger in my own mothering skin.

From the moment we landed, you were abundant in the attention you shared with me and Helena. You gave generously with your curious, attentive spirit, becoming her gardening partner and playful companion. I knew I could trust you to be honest with me, and that made me feel more at home even though I was so far from it.

When I accepted that I didn't feel a genuine desire to learn to speak Swedish while there, simply because my "plate" felt too full already as a mother and writer living abroad, you accepted me. I didn't feel judged by you.

That kind of love is really, really helpful to a mother of a young child, who is navigating life in a whole new land.

At dinnertime during one of my horrible multi-day migraines, you asked if I wanted the overhead lamp turned off. I could barely answer; I could barely think. You didn’t wait for me to reply. You stood up and turned the light off. And that wasn’t the first time you noticed something on my behalf, or Helena’s, and took action because…

Village. We had a village together for that one precious year.

In a world so far away from what I knew, your outrageously radiant smile shone through your eyes at me, reminding me that mamas always have each other’s backs.

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Photo by Artem Bali on Unsplash

And I also saw you honor your own limits. When you were tired, you told me you were tired and you told Helena, too. You didn’t force yourself to be something you were not. Through this you showed me and my daughter how women can take care of ourselves. It helped me to give myself full permission to be my true self, too. When I was grumpy about the long winter or my marriage, you were fine with me where I was. Not taking sides, not feeding my complaints, just letting me be me.


When I birthed this child and married her father I had no idea you were coming along with the deal. I had no idea I would gain in my life, a woman who I’d lean on intensively, and who would show up with a spirit of sheer generosity as I lived out one of my life’s greatest adventures.

Mamas need each other. Women need each other. Life depends on other life. You aren’t my mother, and you sure showed me and Helena love that felt as deep as a mother’s love, while we were there.

We miss you with every jet lagged, bewildered tear our eyes shed. OK, she’s not shedding tears. I am. I really love you.

Endlessly, endlessly, thanks.
Jessica

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Mama, Your Legs are so Biiiiiiiiig!

3/18/2018

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It's usually when I walk around in my underwear. On occasion my daughter, who just turned five, chases me squealing, "Mama your legs are so biiiiiiig!" She giggles and wants to touch me and play with me. 

The first time she said it was about six months ago and it caught me off guard. 

Did she really just say that? 

It was one of those semi-shocking moments, when a child blurts something you just wouldn't say as an adult. Women don't want to hear that. But plain truth be told, my legs are bigger than hers. She has a slender build and I am almost twice as tall as her. Plus her body is lean and I spent my early childhood snacking on Oreo cookies and ice cream. Mine's not so lean. 


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So once I got over the reaction I would have had 20 years ago: Whaaaaaat? Ohhhh this hurts, ouch, she's right, I really need to get more exercise or stop eating sugar or... which took about three seconds to move through me, I simply said what seemed true and loving: "My legs are just the right size for me."

Frankly I almost couldn't believe what I'd said. Was that really me talking, saying words of self-acceptance about my body? Who was this matter-of-fact-I'm-fine woman that I'd become?

Let me answer that question. This woman is a woman who has experienced so much culturally and self-inflicted criticism, yes mostly self inflicted, about my body that I refused to ever, no I have not ever, said one negative word about my body around my daughter. I don't talk about women's bodies as if they are to be criticized. Spending 30-something years in the pain of that world was enough. 

This is a woman who birthed a girl child, for whom I want as little of that kind of pain as humanly possible. Magazine ads and peer chatter will be enough for her to pick up on society's sick perspectives about the female body. I will not be contributing to that. 

We all get to choose our parenting style. We all get to choose what we say to our children. So many of us want our children to be free of the wounds we lived through in our own childhood. 

Will we teach our daughters to focus on their bodies' strength, on how they feel?

Will we teach our sons to respect girls' bodies, by respecting our own in front of them?

As for me, the best I can do is let the outrageously big love I feel for my daughter escalate my own process of accepting that I am fine. 

I am just fine, just the way I am, whether it's summertime and my skin is glowing, or a long dark winter where I'm pale as a pigeon plucking snow from the curb. At age 14 I had magazine covers plastered on my walls because I thought supermodels were it, and I wanted to be like them. Now, things are different. Age has freed me up. Something like that. 

Yes I know full self acceptance is a tall order. Yet I know it is worth wanting. 
​
Thank you, child, for calling forth my wiser self. May you always know your legs are just the right size for you, too. May you have no idea how many thousands of hours I've spent criticizing my own body, and especially my legs, until someday by the fire while we're camping, it feels like time to tell you that story. Dear child, may your life show you a way that is glorious galaxies beyond the wisdom of mine. 
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Chorus of Compassion: Pain as Messenger

4/6/2017

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As I laid in bed yesterday, the left side of my head ripping apart from the inside with constant pressing pain, it felt like the end of a burning softball bat was pressing against my blood vessels. Migraine #8 has been an acutely painful dance. Life from here on out must look different. I cannot live with this kind of pain. I must hear the message it is meant to bring. I surrender.
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Have you been in pain like this? Are you among the 19% of women with migraines or chronic back pain, or some other bodily agony? What about your child – are you a mother whose child lives with Crohn’s Disease, another autoimmune disorder, a vaccine related injury or some other kind of pain?
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Pain is, above all things, a messenger. Suffering does not need to happen as long as we listen to the message that pain brings and tune in to what is being asked of us – we are, in pain, always being asked… something.

On the very bright side, there is unlimited love right at our very own fingertips. We can speak sweet words to ourselves in our own minds. This nurtures our hearts. We can tend to our physical pain with massage, acupuncture, plant medicine. This nurtures our body. We can take time for ourselves to be spacious, rather than planning too much. This tends to our soul. We can tend to our own body, heart, and soul in many ways and this is always available to us at no cost, with no delay, and with no limits.

How rich we are, that we can love ourselves like this! That we can model for our children what it means to care for the self. That we can create a reality, by “being the change we wish to see in the world” as Gandhi said – a world that is more gentle, more kind, more delightful than before we found it.

Beyond the riches of our own capacity for self-love, there lies an oceanic swell of love felt for us by others. Whether or not we see it, it is absolutely there. 

As my most painful migraine thus far carried on, the option of caring for it “all by myself” disappeared. There was no way I could function; I had to call for help. At 6:30am one morning, a neighbor went out into the world to buy medicine and bring it to my doorstep, while my brain felt as if it were about to explode. What was going on in my head? I didn’t know. But I did know I needed help, and he rose to the occasion before the sun came up.
​

That was when it became clear this was no time to pretend I was independent. We need each other.


A chorus of compassion started singing in my head. I thought of all the other women in the world who experience painful migraines. I thought of the men who do, too. Many of those women and men don’t have friendly neighbors who’ll run errands at the crack of dawn – or worse yet, they don’t have the inner self worth to ask for the help in the first place. My heart swelled with compassion for the emptiness, the hole, the sad state of being so many people live in while living with pain. My life is full of soulfully rich relationships. Many people’s lives are not. And even with rich relationships, life presents significant, sometimes lengthy and seemingly insurmountable challenges. How tough must it be for those people who don’t have this kind of relationship wealth in their lives?

Sidled up to my compassion for others who experience migraines is a batch of compassion for mothers who wanted to give birth vaginally and ended up with a C-section. Some mothers truly mourn the loss of the labor they dreamed of; others are fine with whatever turned out. I feel for the ones who felt a loss, as I too experienced labor-related trauma, even though it was after a vaginal home birth.

Sidled up next to these compassion wells is a deep bay of feeling for those who struggle with emotional eating, overindulging in sugary foods, and deep loneliness. I have faced these dark valleys, and they are not sweetened by the breath of spring lilacs. There is charcoal lining the way. What I would give – I’d give a lot – to soothe the aches and sorrows of anyone suffering along these painful trails.

That’s a lot of compassion. And it’s only my own.
​
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I thought of all the friends and family who offered – from the abundant goodness in their hearts – acupuncture and massage and magnesium in the mail and child care, care packages at my doorstep and fiercely empowering text messages to my very soul. The mountain of compassion embodied in these hearts astounded me.

How sad it is that anyone on Earth ever feels alone in their pain.
How unnecessary and inappropriate this is, when every woman, man and child on this planet has access to this riveting chorus of kindness, love, compassion.

There is only the space of one single thought in between any single person – you, your partner, your child, your mother, your neighbor or best friend, or the homeless person on the city sidewalk – and this chorus of compassion that can soothe all the pain in the world. Sit with this. If your child lives with pain, if you live with pain, stop pretending this is not available to you.


All the love in the world belongs to all of us; it is no one’s alone and could never be.


​Let us teach our children, first by modeling ourselves, the importance of self-care for a life well lived.
That their mother and father are worth all the asking for help, all the affirming mantras, all the pauses and song that are needed to fill up one precious human soul in the busyness of life lived these days.

When our child is in pain, let us show them how to treat it like a friend – to listen to it, to love it like it has something important to say. It does. And our children, energetic masters of feeling and presence, will be glad to step up into seeing their pain as the messenger it is. Let us remind them of the compassion-filled universe awaiting their requests, their calling, their ask. Let us
help them lead the way.
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    Author

    Jessica Rios, Founder of Leaning into Light, was born with a divine pen in her pelvis. She is a lifelong letter writer, a thought leader in Love, and she writes memoirs. Our blog and conversations are devoted to Jessica's greatest passion: illuminating the beauty of the human spirit.

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