kindness begins at the source…

Welcome to Tuesdays with Chel.

Each week Chel Micheline of gingerblue dot com will offer her perspectives on our Bliss Habits. Please enjoy the wisdom and clarity she offers.

I have nerve damage in my legs and feet, and my feet are more or less numb. When I was a teenager, it became pretty apparent that “staying off my feet” (the typical recommendation for someone with Spina Bifida) wasn’t going to work for me.

I love to move. I love to feel speed. I love to make my body *work*. I know these aren’t typical passions but for me they are essential to my well-being. Maybe it’s because some part of me thinks that if I constantly push my physical body, it will “cancel” out the bad stuff that can come with having Spina Bifida. Whatever it is, it makes me deeply happy to be active. It makes me feel alive.

So, like any typical teenager, I tested the limits of my body. And tested. And tested. And of course, I paid the price. Foot collapse, bone infection, reconstruction of my left foot out of bone from my hip.

Finally, in my 20’s, after all that surgery, I found the balance. I realized that I can still be really active as long as it was mostly in water. When I swim, I not only stay off my feet, but the rest of my body gets a great workout and my spine straightens each time I stretch my body to take a stroke. And it’s all REALLY good for me, so bonus, right?

The other part of the balance was that I had to take exquisite (meaning OCD-like level) care of my body AFTER my swim. After I swim every day, and take a shower, I examine my legs and feet carefully, every tiny bit of them, every crevice, and make sure nothing’s going on- no “hotspots”, no cracks, no redness, no tiny cuts I may not have noticed, etc. There’s a routine that goes with each and every one of those things, if they should arise.

Then I carefully cover my feet with lotions and potions and bandages to protect them in case something does happen before I swim the next day. It takes a while to do, especially when I do find something, but it’s worth it. I feel like it’s a fair exchange for being able to swim and garden and walk, you know? (But there are no exceptions to this rule, which is why I rarely travel- doing this in hotels is NOT easy. I have a private bathroom here at home that no one goes into and I keep it pretty much sterile. But hotel bathroom? Ugh.)

I’ll be honest- I’m not cheerful about the routine. It takes a while, and I’m not a patient person. It can make me cranky, some days when I’m in a rush and I have to do this whole dog-and-pony show. Some days I don’t feel into it. I’m not “Little Miss Sunshine” to begin with, and on some days it feels like I am forever in the bathroom, hunched over my feet, scrutinizing them. And then last week, I found a crack under one of my toes. No big deal in the big scheme of things (it would be gone in a few days if properly taken care of) but I grumbled “I’m *so* over this”. Seriously. It had been a long day and I was tired and I wanted a cup of tea and lunch and it was after 6pm.

So as I took care of the tiny crack, for some reason I started thinking about my garden and how I sort of take the same kind of care of my plants. (And also my pets. And my family.) But, unlike my foot, I consider all of those things a really *cool* opportunity, not an obligation. I LOVE tending to my plants, my garden. I LOVE tending to my animals. I LOVE (well, most of the time) tending to my family.

For example, if someone gave me a wonky plant to tend to, I would do so lovingly, with honor. I would try and do everything I could to get it healthy again. If one of my pets needed TLC, I would give it with my whole heart. Same with Tom or Gracie. Or my friends.

I do believe everything is created from the same cosmic material- stars and flowers and the ocean and all the amazing things I find in nature. So then why is my body any different? It’s a creation, all part of the same whole that my garden and my family is. It was given to me. It was entrusted to my care. Just because it’s *mine* doesn’t mean it deserves any less. It deserves the same kindness, the same love as I extend to other things. Just because it’s *my* body doesn’t mean it’s any less worthy.

Depending on what you believe,caring for ourselves can be a truly sacred and holy act. It’s just as holy as prayer or volunteer work or meditation. We get an opportunity to tend to a giant living thing every moment of our life, but because it belongs to *us*, we sort of make it less important.

I don’t believe we have to do it in a super cheerful “WOW, I’m sick and I have to eat broccoli and I have to take all these giant pills every day – how amazing!” kind of attitude, because taking care of ourselves can be a big drag.

But, still… it was nice to realize that taking care of myself could be considered another way of giving back to the Universe.

I have never felt this way before about my health “routine” so it was DEFINITELY a little surprising for me. I mean, I’m not going to go and throw a parade because there’s an irritation under my toes- I’m not excited about it. It does scare me. But I realized that it’s just another opportunity to tend, to extend love. It’s more practice of the thing I want to do more of in life. It just comes in the form of a human body, not a tiny little seed taking root or a little fluffy animal that needs some love and attention.