I have a conflicted relationship with my gut. When I started my period, my gut totally betrayed me. I had unbelievable pain, pain that woke me up and made me bend over double in a hot shower at 3am, pain that made me get up and drive in my pajamas to get Advil, pain that made me grip the handle of the bathroom door and hope I didn’t pass out. Pain like this, during my period, during ovulation, and in between, for more than 10 years because I thought it was normal and no doctor told me otherwise until I couldn’t get pregnant. Then I discovered I had a disease called endometriosis, we call it endo to make it easier to say (!). Millions of women have it, most of us go undiagnosed for years.
So my core is tender, scarred, broken and full of pain, and I always felt removed from it. Betrayed by my core. Angry at my core. I realized this even more after my last surgery for endo and I found exercise.
This last surgery relieved the pain and inflammation enough that I finally felt able to exercise. And I knew I needed to exercise to keep my scar tissue from hardening and causing pain. And suddenly, I found exercise, like some people find religion. I found it made me feel happier, stronger and relieved stress, just like all the books and blogs said it would! And like in a most religions, where certain phrases are repeated, I found the phrase “engage your core” is invoked all the time. I never understood what the hell they meant by that. Engage your core. My arms and legs are shaking and I’m told to tighten my core.
I had a hard time engaging my core. In fact, I was totally disengaged from my core. After years of living with chronic illness that was mainly settled in my guts, I had stopped listening to my gut, all together. I couldn’t “engage” my core because my insides and me had stopped speaking to each other.
So these couple of years that I have become a steady exerciser, I just started listening to my gut. And I’ve forgiven all the pain it has caused me – we are on the hard long path to reconciliation. I’ve realized that I held all the pain, exhaustion, and fear of pain close inside. Sometimes, I actually feel waves of nausea when I pull in my core and I imagine, it’s all of that shit pouring out. I’m not sure how long the surgery will work to alleviate the pain, and the disease is likely to return, and make exercising harder. So while I can and while I am able, I am learning to engage my core.
My guts are scarred, after two surgeries and sometimes I feel like my core is broken. But I’ve learned that my core also keeps me standing, and it is really true – if I engage with it, feel it, tighten it, talk with it, treasure it – then my core can help me lift heavier and jump higher and find more strength.
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