Returning.

I meant to run this morning, but it didn't happen. My hip is largely better, but still twinging a little. Nothing like it was mere days ago. I attribute this healing to some astounding meditating I've been doing that really makes a hell of a lot of sense.

Here's what happened: I was doing some of the guided breathing meditations I've been talking about when a new one came up. Breathe in, then on the exhale smile, and send the smile to a particular part of the body. So I did this for my right hip. Over and over again. I sent healing goodness to my aching hip. Next morning when I woke up, I was damned near healed.

But doesn't this make perfect sense? When the hip started to ache, I got frustrated. Then fearful. Then angry. Then pissed off. The more time I took off from running, the more I resented my hip for asking me to slow down. I was sending that crappy, mean, furious energy straight into that hip. Why wouldn't it respond with deeper, shooting pain? Then when I sent love and healing, it responded in kind. Thank you very much.

It occurs to me that this little exercise has great implications for other demons of mine. Especially my nagging self-hatred of particular areas of my body, a.k.a. "the wobbly bits." I have been fully convinced for years that many cancers arise out of this self hatred, particularly with women and breast cancer and with sexual abuse survivors and cervical cancer, etc. I believe we create illness, and now I am fully convinced we can create wellness. How fabulous!

So, I've decided to start sending "smiles" to my wobbly bits.

I've been re-reading old writing books I read when I was a teenager, and it's inspiring to read the passages I highlighted back then. One book in particular, "Writing from the Body," is full of great stuff that I've finally been discovering for myself this summer. It all seems to be the same work for me, at different stages of the game. But the upshot is I feel like I'm liberating myself, allowing myself to free the wild creativity inside, the messy, colorful stuff that hides behind my blazers and reporter's notebooks. . . .

It's all about returning to self. Fascinating.

And one of these days I'll return to running. . . .