You Are a Walking, Breathing Miracle

Inside Nat's Notebook - Real Reflections for Real Change

Have you ever had a paper cut and then completely forgotten about it?

At the time, you certainly knew it was there. That ridiculous sting from something so tiny. You catch it on your clothes, washing your hands suddenly becomes surprisingly unpleasant and lemon juice turns into a vicious weapon.

Then a couple of days later, you happen to look at your finger and realise the cut has completely disappeared. Not even a mark!

Except, of course, it didn't disappear.

It healed.

While you were answering emails, making dinner, sleeping, talking, worrying about something completely unrelated and generally getting on with your life, your body was busy repairing the damage.

You didn't organise any of it. You didn't consciously send platelets rushing to the area, instruct your immune system to keep an eye out for infection or supervise the rebuilding of damaged tissue.

Your body simply got on with the job while you got on with yours.

I find that absolutely extraordinary.

And yet, most of us probably don't spend much time marvelling at a healed paper cut. We notice the cut because it hurts. We notice the inconvenience. But the astonishing process quietly taking place afterwards barely gets a mention.

Maybe that's because our bodies have become so familiar to us that we've stopped noticing just how much they're doing.

Most Of The Time, Your Body Just Gets On With It

Right now, as you're reading this, your heart is beating, and your lungs are breathing. Your body is regulating its temperature, circulating blood, digesting whatever you last ate and maintaining your balance.

Your eyes are turning marks on a screen into words you understand, while your hands know exactly how firmly they need to hold your phone, tablet or cup of tea without you consciously calculating the pressure required.

Thankfully, none of this requires much management from you.

Imagine the admin if it did, oh my goodness! You'd barely have time to make breakfast if you had to remember to keep your heart beating while simultaneously digesting last night's dinner and reminding yourself to breathe.

An extraordinary amount is happening inside you during every completely ordinary day, and much of it never reaches your conscious awareness.

Last week, I wrote about the way familiarity allows things to disappear quietly into the background. The house we once dreamed about eventually becomes simply where we live. The car we were ridiculously excited to collect becomes the thing with a water bottle rolling around under the passenger seat.

(Catch up here if you missed it.)

I think we do something very similar with our bodies.

Except, of course, we've been living in this one rather longer than the new car.

We Often Notice The Body When It Stops Being Convenient

A headache arrives halfway through the afternoon. Your back starts aching after you've been sitting too long. You wake at 3.03am and can't get back to sleep. Or you realise your shoulders have somehow taken up permanent residence somewhere near your ears.

Suddenly, you're very aware of your body.

And quite often the conversation begins with what it appears to be doing wrong.

Why am I so tired? Why does this hurt? Why can't I sleep? Why can't my body just do what I need it to do?

I understand that conversation very well. When your body interrupts your plans, limits what you can do or simply refuses to keep pace with everything your mind has decided needs to happen today, it can be incredibly frustrating.

Bodies become ill. Bodies hurt. Injuries need treatment and symptoms sometimes need proper medical attention. I'm certainly not suggesting we should romanticise any of that.

But I am interested in a different question.

What if we stopped judging how well our bodies are doing solely by how little they inconvenience us?

Because even on a day when something hurts, feels tired or isn't behaving quite how you'd like it to, an extraordinary amount is still happening.

Your heart hasn't forgotten its job because you're annoyed with your back.

Your eyes don't need reminding how to adjust when you step outside.

There is so much more happening than the thing demanding your attention. And maybe we've become so accustomed to all of that going right that we've stopped considering it remarkable.

This Is How You Get To Experience Being Alive

Think about it.

You know someone you love has taken your hand because your skin registers their touch. You know the sea is cool when you first step into it. You feel sunshine warming your face. You recognise a familiar voice. Music can make you want to move. The smell of something cooking can make your mouth water before you've even seen what's for dinner.

And then there's that moment at the end of a long day when you finally lie down, and your entire body seems to say, Ohhhhhhh, thank you.

This body isn't simply carrying you through your life.

It's how you get to experience it.

We tend to marvel at the spectacular things human bodies can do. Someone runs a marathon, climbs a mountain or recovers from an extraordinary injury, and we quite rightly think, Wow, look what the human body can do.

But maybe we've set the bar for extraordinary rather high.

Perhaps extraordinary doesn't always need to look spectacular. Sometimes it's far quieter than that: tasting your tea, hearing someone you love laugh, feeling your feet carrying you across the room, while somewhere beneath your awareness your heart keeps beating and a tiny paper cut quietly gets on with healing itself.

After a lifetime of all this happening without much involvement from you, of course it feels ordinary. You've had a lot of time to get used to being a walking, breathing miracle.

#Rebel Moment

At some point today, notice one thing your body is doing that you didn't have to organise.

Your eyes adjusting when you walk outside. Your mouth watering when food smells good. Your legs carrying you across a room.

Just notice it.

Not because you need to do anything with it, but because something doesn't stop being extraordinary simply because it happens every day.

Stay Blessed!

LoveLove

Nat x

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You don't have to carry it all on your own.