Where are you storing your grief?

Its been 4 years since my last confession....I mean massage.I'm a masseur, a fully trained licensed remedial massage therapist and I haven't done one for 4 years!! Well.....other than the odd 5 minute back rub for hubby. Ever since I have had my son I haven't massaged for a living. My partner and I became a management couple instead. It worked really well....until we decided to have another baby. All of a sudden we were shacked up and ready to roll and 7 weeks 2 days later my tube blew out which took us both off the road for a while. We have been trying to think of a way to get me back on track. We have been bouncing ideas off each other for me to make extra income from home, or via the net. The logical conclusion was for me to set up a massage room and start getting clients. The boy had started preschool and all odds stacked up in its favour except one thing. On my right hand, my ring finger and my pinky are covered in dermatitis. Painful flaky cracked bleeding annoying dermatitis. On occasion I would put cortisone cream on it and it would be good for a couple of days, until i did the dishes or washed my hair or did anything with my hands really. About a month ago it got to the point where i couldn't submerse my hand in water without it feeling like I had poured acid on it. It affected my quality of life. It seems such a small thing but it was such a pain in the ass because all of a sudden this little annoying thing was keeping me from making a living from something I used to be so passionate about.

 I miss having passion in my life. I needed passion back in my life...hell who am I kidding...we need the extra income.....badly! Everything I love to do...involves my hands. Massaging, cooking, gardening, felting, drawing,playing with my son. It was close to driving me crazy. Anything and everything anyone suggested I did. Ive taken homoeopathics, naturopathics, multivitamins, all sorts of oils and omegas  for skin problems, skin salts,detoxing programs, no dairy, no alcohol, no tea...........bloody basically no life.

 Its been tough....on all of us not just me. Its a classic case of the snowball effect....starting with the ectopic pregnancy followed by a succession of events of the ball getting bigger and bigger and bigger until last week i cracked....quite literally felt like I had split in half...again....out of the blue. Classic post traumatic stress disorder style....and it eats me....everytime. Chews me up and spits me out feeling a little less like "me" everytime. Im sick of it...I've had enough. This "life" Im living is not my life...its not "me" in this body. Its my shell... housing shattered fragments of me....that are shaky and scared of being put back together again just incase I witness first hand that not all of my pieces exist anymore.

On Wednesday  the 6th of June I had a combined reiki massage session with a new therapist. She took one look at my hand and said its got nothing to do with anything I'm putting on or in my body. Its purely emotional, traditionally trouble in the ring finger symbolises grief and the little finger symbolises family. I explained to her that I am currently grieving.I went home perplexed. 3 days later, on the morning of the due date of my baby that got the raw end of the stick or fallopian tube as it was.....I woke up and my dermatitis is gone. Not better.....or less sore....gone! I just wish I had taken a photo of it when it was bad so that I could show you the difference.

I am nothing short of amazed. My husband looks at it in disbelief. I have been whining about my hands for months...."when are you going to install the frickin dishwasher man???"  It makes me smile, 5 days of waking up happy because i haven't scratched my fingers till they bleed in my sleep.

Im hoping this means I have dealt with my grief...now i can move on. It has to be the true beginning of my healing and forgiving my body. Ectopic pregnancy does feel like your body betrays you...in every way. I am learning to forgive my body and to love my body again....its been a long road to get to here.

I have missed being happy.....true happiness is effortless, guilt free and light. I feel like I am breathing again........I feel like the cloud of depression is finally lifting.

Has this happened to anyone else? Has your grief manifested itself in other parts of your body? If so....where?

Think pink

Janey