The Medicine of Gratitude

On Thanksgiving Day in 2013, I published my first real blog post — an essay in which I expressed gratitude to my body for all it could do.

Read it here: Expressing Gratitude to My Body.

At the time, I was just over 90 days into my new “Fitness First” ritual. As I wrote then, my new ritual wasn’t just about building strength, staying healthy, or getting my dopamine fix. I made exercise and fitness a priority as an act of gratitude for all that my body does for me.

The Medicine of Movement

Fast forward 11 years. My daily Fitness First ritual is still going strong.

If you follow me on social media or read my blog regularly, you’re likely to see and read about my adventures on the flying trapeze and trampoline, weightlifting, CrossFit, and yoga.

If you never met me in person or saw me in motion, you might assume — as many have — that I am agile, nimble, and athletic; that I move with ease.

In fact, it’s the opposite. Since my childhood, I struggled with coordination issues and mobility. Although I loved to climb and play sports, I was never the best athlete. I was often clumsy and awkward, plagued by injuries and chronic pain.

My daily exercise routine helps these issues. I often find that movement is the best medicine for chronic pain.

In addition, many of my athletic pursuits keep my engaged with the promise of reaching a new level: new skills in flying trapeze or on the trampoline, hitting a new PR in weightlifting, or getting into that “more advanced” yoga pose. The thrill of reaching the next level offers a natural “high” from the dopamine boost, which both helps me focus and keeps me coming back for more.

When I’m feeling good in my body, when I’m pain-free, and when I feel like I’m making “progress,” it’s easy to feel gratitude for my body and all it does for me.

When Pain Clouds Perspective

That said, when it comes to gratitude for the body — indeed, gratitude in any area — it’s easy to lose perspective.

“Progress” is not linear. It’s unrealistic to expect to hit a PR in every workout or to master a new skill in each practice. Physical pain is complicated — rooted not just in biomechanics, but also in emotional state — and exercise is not always a “magic pill” that makes it go away.

Periods of grief or profound stress can cause the body to light up in pain or shut down.

When I’m struggling to move, or when I’m feeling physical pain, it’s easy to lose that perspective of gratitude, to fall into the trap of believing that my body is “broken” and needs to be “fixed.”

The Practice: Widening the Lens

These are the moments when it’s especially important to step back and appreciate my body for what it was able to on any given day and in any given moment.

The truth is that even when the body is “not cooperating” with my mind’s desire for it to squat, lift, or form a certain shape, it is still working for me in ways I don’t have to think about.

In fact, I think one of the purposes of pain is to remind us us step back, take a wider perspective on the body, and appreciate all the ways in which the body is working, without my conscious participation:

• The heart that beats its own.
• The lungs that facilitate the breath. Even when I forget to breathe, the body breathes me.
• The kidneys that filter what is useful from what is no longer needed
• The liver that detoxifies
• All the glands and systems that run on their inner clock, doing their thing, to keep me healthy and alive.
• I can see. I can hear. I can smell. I can taste. I can feel sensations internally and from external contact.
• I can eat and digest food.
• I have 2 legs and 2 feet, 2 arms and 2 hands. 10 fingers and 10 toes.

Sometimes it helps to remind myself that there are many people who are living vibrant lives who don’t have all of their senses or all of their limbs or all of their parts.

There are people who rely on prosthetic limbs, walkers, wheel chairs, dialysis machines, insulin patches, hearing aids, feeding tubes, catheters. And even they find gratitude for their bodies.

Finding Gratitude Through Pain

As I often remind my yoga students and myself, this is the true practice of yoga — on and off the mat:

To find gratitude for my body and what it is able to do for me on any given day, in any given workout, training session, practice, or just going through my day — even when it feels difficult or painful to move.

Admittedly, it can be hard to find this perspective in a moment when the pain is intense. That’s why gratitude is a practice.

It turns out that gratitude is also a form of medicine: I have found it to be true that when I can find gratitude for my body, even when in pain, the pain dissipates.