This is My Body Today by Rachel Zoeller

Waking up in a disabled body means uncertainty. My morning starts by manually unlocking my knees from extension as I cautiously await my body’s pain report: will I be light and loose or stiff and heavy? Or will I land somewhere in-between? As the answers arrive, I listen for what my body needs: meditation followed by movement? Or perhaps I sit and write while my thoughts are still fresh? I wait, listen, then follow my body’s advice.

So much has changed since my accident. I don’t crave coming to my mat like I used to. Some days there is just too much honesty there to face. But I know the only way forward is through. It just takes more effort to get there consistently. If I know I will be in my wheelchair for most of the day, I crawl my way down to my mat, which lays perfectly in my closet. The closet — a safe place to decide who and what I am today before I greet the world. 

It can be difficult to get my bones lubricated, but in time, they give. I take myself through my simple adapted flow. Usually starting in child’s pose, flowing in/out of plank from my knees, cat/cow (that resembles a static table), modified warrior one to lizard, seated sun salutations, supported squat to forward fold, and finishing out with chest opening and hip stretching on my back. 

My practice wasn’t always this way. I started my daily yoga and meditation practice in 2013 at my climbing gym in Nashville shortly before I left for the west coast. I was recovering from a hernia repair and was on restrictions from running and climbing. I loved the permission of savasana to allow the world to slow down for a beat and quickly became a studio regular. Yoga was something I wasn’t good at, something where there was no goal, no personal record, no new height to reach. I loved getting to know my body in such an intimate way and surprising myself with the smallest of changes in awareness and strength. I was high on the way it made my mind and body feel. Challenged, playful, beautiful.  

I had a very strong body (I still do), and I had a strong physical asana practice. I loved arm balances and inversions, fast moving flows, slow patience-testing stretches.  My favorite poses were simple ones: warrior 2 to exalted warrior to side angle. Rehearsing motions so effortlessly that I can still recall them — I pull them back into existence and my body remembers.

Off of my mat, I measured my worth in so many worthless ways. My ego was tied to my professional, personal, or physical accomplishments, or lack thereof.  But in the studio, I was so green and had no agenda nor expectations.  It was the first place I really began to feel comfortable in my skin — a place separate from societal definitions of who I was and who I should be. Beautiful and worthy for just existing. Genderless and formless. Loving and fluid. I began to receive compliments from teachers on my practice — compliments I could easily accept, because honestly — I felt beautiful. 

I, like so many of us, struggled with accepting my body — specifically weight gain in my hips. It made me feel too feminine. Not having language for what I was feeling (loss of control, and a body with estrogen that wanted to prepare for potential childbirth, when I more readily identified with an androgynous masc-leaning presentation), I withheld and purged nutrients from my body, punishing it for just being. I remember early in my practice how the shadow of my hips looked so wide over my mat when holding plank position. The way I loathed myself, and then the path I took in learning to love myself. The shadow is still there. The width of my bones not much changed, even now with my paraplegic legs. 

I wrote this in 2016 as part of a YTT application that I never actually participated in: 

“My practice has become the place where I feel more like myself than anywhere else. On my mat, I do not struggle with accepting my body, my identity — I am just Rachel. Every time I come to my mat, I feel as though I am better able to carry that stronger sense of self with me into the world, something years of therapy never gave me. The words ‘this is my body today’ and ‘I want to love you, but I don’t yet know how’ have taught me how to be more loving, patient, and kind with myself, and in turn, with others.”

I am so grateful to my past self for unknowingly preparing the tools I would need for my greatest transition in life. A practice in acceptance, breath, and an intense radical love for myself and my body. I have forgiven myself for the way I treated what I now know as my perfect body. Now, in its disabled state, I am in awe of its unbelievable strength, how far it has carried me, and all that it is capable of. I love my body fiercely and its imperfections. 

My mat brings me back to the present. This is my body today. The future does not exist. There is nothing to fear. I am safe here. I am healing here. Here, I still defy odds and definitions of what society expects of this queer disabled body.

I can’t physically keep up with the pace of a group class. My body no longer tolerates fast, repetitive movements.  My practice has become slow and cautious, yet still experimental. I continue to surprise myself. For example, I need support in all standing postures, however crow and hopping back into plank are still available to me. I can’t twist my spine, but find new ways to breathe space into those muscles. Some postures feel all too familiar. My modified camel still attempts to steal my breath and brings cause for panic. 

All of these postures remind me how fascinating neurological weakness is — I don’t gain or retain strength in a linear fashion. One day I may be able to stabilize my hips, while the next day those stabilizers are fully asleep. I modify and create new poses and frequently end up with an “Uh, I didn’t know I could do that!” Often, I just visualize, drawing on those well-known movements, igniting my circuitry. Rehearsing and remembering familiar movements makes these connections stronger and the pain softer. 

I imagine a spine that articulates. A spine that moves in all directions. Wringing my scars free. Fully inflated vertebral bodies. The space around me is dark. My body is floating, translucent, nearly formless. My spine is illuminated. I coil into myself, with circular serpentine movements one vertebrae at a time, pause, and then unfurl with the same detail into the fullest expression of extension, fireworks. I am dancing, undulating, dropping low. I am all that is cat! I am all that is cow! The mightiest sphinx, the happiest baby. 

You may be wondering, “Doesn’t this recognition of lack bring you more sadness?” And the answer is yes, but only temporarily. Then I remember: I am in control of my thoughts. 

Just as my body ranges in ability between days and moments, so do my thoughts and emotions. There are periods when pain lingers for more than a day, that my sense of time and truth begin to warp. “It will always be this way” or “I’ll never feel free or energized again” and “I can’t show up for the people in my life” become pervasive thoughts. These thoughts have the weight of forever, and I have to fight like hell to break free of them. I draw on all of my tools — medication, meditation, talking, journaling, and movement — with sprinkles of escapism placed here and there. In time, the heaviness lifts and the emotional pendulum swings back from the depths of forever to “hope springs eternal.”

By design, human brains have a negativity bias. It's a safety feature — our brains want to be prepared for the worst-case scenario and are constantly scanning for danger.  Negative thoughts tend to evoke strong emotions. Emotions then produce chemical reactions in our bodies, making it possible for us to become chemically addicted to our reoccurring thoughts. 

It takes concentrated awareness to not let my thoughts completely takeover.  I catch them gently, observing, breathing them in and out. I welcome the flow of tears.  I remind myself that it is okay to feel anger, sadness, and fear — and that facing these difficult emotions takes bravery and builds resilience.  Then I ground myself in what is real and true in the present moment. Recalibrating from sitting in my suffering to creating my own healing. From missing the ways I once moved through the world to seeing my life filled with joy and incredible experiences. This is the ultimate practice. 

It is so easy to get stuck in thought and movement patterns that we know or come easy to us. But it's when we break those familiar patterns that we create space for change in our lives.  And don’t we owe that to ourselves? Challenging ourselves by spending time in the difficult or unfamiliar. Actively writing our own stories to build the lives and world we want to live in instead of passively waiting for life to happen to us. 

It can be tempting to measure the strength of your practice by the ability to achieve poses, but the strength of a yoga practice has and will always be about showing up, facing ourselves honestly, and growing from the inside out. 

My dear friend recently opened a yoga studio in a historic building, across the country from where I live.  She advocated for compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) within their lease. The owner of the building pushed back and said, “No one in a wheelchair will be coming to yoga.” To which my friend quickly responded, “Let me tell you about my friend Rachel…”  I’ve only been to an in-person class once since my accident and have transitioned to an online yoga community (Haus of Phoenix, I love you). The simple gestures, support, and guidance I receive from my global yoga community remind me that I still belong here, that perhaps I am creating visibility for someone else, that all bodies can do yoga, and that yoga is meeting your body wherever it is today, as long as you show up.