She called my body 'she'
Reflections on bodily personification
“You both work with trauma, I think you should connect.” I trusted her suggestion. So I met a stranger and was open to talk, and learn what she might have to teach me.
She was a bodyworker who practiced Structural Integration, something I had never heard of. Along with curiosity if she might help my clients, I honestly wanted to see if she could help me. And what I didn’t know would stay with me the longest, was a simple word choice foreign to me.
Before our sessions she would send an introductory message — and she would call my body she.
Her statements didn’t read as I expected them to, phrases I would word by saying, “Your body has been carrying a lot of stress.” Instead her words were more intimate, she would call my body she.
I would read her statements that both made sense and didn’t yet compute. I knew I was a person and I had a body, but I couldn’t yet combine these two.
To say “She’s been carrying so much stress” was almost uncomfortable. To personify my body that much felt too deeply personal.
But to personify something first assumes that the object or being is not human. So why in the world did this feel like a problem, acknowledging that my body — that I — am me?
It wasn’t until I made my fifth move in or out of the country, and was feeling deep wells of grief, that I started to realize this move has hurt the most, because she called my body she.
It is in this move that I’ve been more connected to my body than ever before. And another way to say the same thing, would be to call my body she — to acknowledge my body is me.
And even though it’s years down the road, and I myself am a somatic focused counselor, in some ways I’m just waking up to how normal this disconnection was for me. And as I stand here parsing through these words, I can’t help but pause and wonder:
What would it look like to wholeheartedly humanize ourselves to anchor in a fully personified sense of body connection? And what would be the pain or the price we’d need to pay for this kind of personification?
What would be the cost of slowing down and living differently, if I called my body me?
And just because it’s so beautiful, here’s a picture from the windowsill where I stood and typed these words on the Isle of Iona today. I was about to go out for a walk before some writing but it started to sprinkle, so writing today came first :)
Further Exploration:
If these themes are something you’re curious to explore more, consider reading or listening to The Wisdom of Your Body by Hillary McBride and/or Somatic Internal Family Systems Therapy by Susan McConnell.
Interesting perspective. Thank you!