Out of balance.

These past four days I have been nursing a bad back. I woke up on Tuesday morning and felt fine. I pulled out a table that I was going to use for my listing in the neighborhood and lifted it to leave it for Glenn to bring upstairs. I could feel my back start to stiffen, but was able to put it in place and walk upstairs. In the middle of some benign move, my back seized up in a spasm and there it stayed for four days now.

Myriam (who works with me) lives with a body worker, who, when she found I had thrown out my back, she insisted that I go and see. "You have to go see Michael!"

She made an appointment for me to see him and I squeezed the appointment in on Wednesday. The philosophy of his practice, I am guessing, is the whole person, the whole body, how one part of the body influences the others. He asked me to stand and feel where my weight was centered on my feet. I could feel the majority of the weight on my right foot on the outside edge toward the heel. On the left foot I could feel it resting on the inside edge of the ball of my foot. Aha... Immediately I could see, I was the leaning tower of Cathy.

He asked me about my history. Hmmm surgeries?? Ah yes.... I had a mastectomy and no reconstruction, so I am somewhat minus some weight on my left side of my body.... a hysterectomy ... yup that being removed might influence how the other organs relate to each other with it missing. Basically, I am in an altered state I suppose and my body has been compensating in one way or another.

Michael did some hands on work noting my good but tight leg muscles (been working on those as you know). He said my hips were pointing different directions... Then he gave me a couple of exercises I should practice at home. He suggested I might lose weight... (I think I said something like, ahem I have lost 45 pounds in the last year and a half.) He insisted I should still lose weight and then I think I said "Let's not go there."

I appreciate the nudge having come from a place of concern and helpfulness, but I am healthier mentally and physically than I have ever been. On this, I know myself. It is after all..... all connected.

Yesterday afternoon, with my back still feeling kind of poorly, I went to put on my shoes to walk with Patti to have a TGIF cocktail at the club. I slipped my feet in and laced them up. Hmmmm, that doesn't feel right I thought. I stood there and felt the weight on my feet and the shoes they were resting in. I have orthotics for my shoes and the arch was in the completely wrong place. I sat down and took them out of the shoes. THEY WERE IN THE WRONG SHOES! The right was in the left and the left was in the right. I walked 14 miles in those shoes on Sunday.

And now it makes sense. The back, the feet, the shoes. It is all connected, and when you mess with one part of your body the rest can suffer. I am guessing this is a signal I need to slow down long enough to feel my feet!