I Body, Therefore I Am
What we risk losing when we prioritize the mind over the body.
The first time I witnessed the power of the mind was when I was eight. After my mom had suffered a major brain aneurysm that left her dominant side paralyzed, the doctors told her she would never walk again. But like Matilda moving the cereal bowl with her mind, she thought hard enough and was so determined to walk again that she awakened the dead cells in her limp leg. It was a miracle, as they say.
Despite re-learning how to eat, write and walk again, mom still felt like her body had betrayed her. The grief over the parts of her body that she lost weighed heavy on her for the rest of her life. Dutifully writing all her thank you cards with her non-dominant hand would leave her in tears as she was embarrassed of her child-like chicken scratch writing, no longer the eloquent cursive of a lawyer-by-day, journaller-by-night. What once were beautiful sonatas were now broken, as she fumbled over the piano keys, struggling to…