I am not my physical body

I don’t feel sick. Am I supposed to? This is a question I keep asking myself. I see it in the way people now look at me when they ask how I am doing. That question feels way more loaded these days.

I look in the mirror and the physical transformation of losing my hair, the bald spot on the back of my head and my eyebrows are starting to thin. These are the first physical signs of cancer. My thick curly hair is now replaced with small wisps of what used to be. The curls are gone and replaced by head scarves. This former self I knew, or maybe thought I knew, doesn’t seem to be looking back at me anymore.

When I feel into my body, I can feel the port that rests just under my left collar bone. Because I don’t have much body fat, it protrudes from under my skin, the scar where the surgeon made the incision is still healing. Sometimes it feels tight and sore. I feel bionic having it there. 

I can feel the lump in my right breast where my cancer is from time to time. I sometimes feel a sharp pain or a little twinge. Perhaps that might be the meds doing their job. The lump does feel smaller to my touch. Sometimes when I take a deep breath, it can feel heavy on my chest or the lump feels like it gets caught in my throat. Almost like a little ‘knock-knock’ to say hello. 

I am about a month into my treatment and it still feels like I am watching it all play out. I am present with it all, but it doesn’t feel like me. The only major side effect, so far, is feeling tired after treatments. And adjusting to my new routines and way of living. 

I see my family hustling around me to make sure I have what I need, and also trying to figure out how to move through this themselves. I want to comfort them too. I am still able to go about my days fairly normally (for the most part), and I want them to know I am okay. I feel okay. Sometimes I wonder if they believe me.  

Maybe it is the clarity that I have always been okay. And it just took this diagnosis to make me truly recognize it. Even if I am starting to physically change, the core of my being is only getting stronger.  I can see it in my eyes when I look in the mirror.  That soul level place that resides deep within - that has always been. It is a place that resides in all of us

As a whole, we get so caught up in the physical outside world. The inner world, our inner light, is often hard to see and identify. And we hide it because we believe ‘the physical’ is what defines us. Not intentionally, of course.

Perhaps, I can’t fully understand the worry in people’s eyes when they ask me how I am doing. Because I know I am not my physical body. Yes, it is this vessel that so beautifully moves me through the world, and keeps me safe in a lot of ways. But, it is not what defines me. It is not my full essence. There is something much deeper beyond it. 

So I can’t fully identify with being sick, because the core of this being is not. It is whole, complete, full of love and joy. It just took the cancer to remind me it was there all along.