By Juliet Bonnay

From Palm Beach to Miami in Florida the ‘snow birds’ come to escape the cold winters of the north. They are elderly people who fill the streets and holiday resorts and are often seen struggling to get out of cars to shuffle stiffly into restaurants.

Watching them each day made me think a lot about what we do to our bodies. My back was mending too slowly after a car accident. Chiropractic treatment wasn’t working and I became aware that I was holding onto some long-standing emotions that wouldn’t allow my back to heal.

It was a long process getting in touch with them, but my efforts paid off. After several months on my own in a secluded place in New Hampshire in the middle of winter, I awoke one morning with no pain. It was startling, akin to a constant noise ringing in my ears for months, then silence.

During that time I read Sacred Journey of the Peaceful Warrior, in which Dan Millman stated:

“I now understand that the physical symptoms I had experienced back home -the infections, the aches and pains – had been my Basic Self, crying for attention like a young child; it wanted me to express all the feelings inside. Suddenly I understood the aphorism ‘The organs weep the tears the eyes refuse to shed.’ And something Wilhelm Reich had once said came into my mind: Unexpressed emotion is stored in the muscles of the body.”

In my mind I can still vividly see old people taking mincing steps, stooped over with arthritic backs. I think to myself, “It need not be like this.” When you consider that radioactive isotope studies show that we replace 98 per cent of all the atoms in our body in less that one year, that we make a new liver every six weeks, a new skeleton once every three months and so on, you may well ask, “Why does the body age and become diseased?”

I was an avid horsewoman in my 20s and 30s and wanted to ride forever. When I saw an 82-year-old woman competing in the equestrian events at the Olympic Games, I decided then that I would still be riding a horse when I was 80.

However, I didn’t realise that to do this, I would have to address al the unexpressed emotions stored in my body – especially in my back.

It was a painful process getting in touch with them all, but I learned that the flipside of the coin that says “pain” is joy. The deeper I went inside myself to address the pain the more joy I was able to feel on a daily basis. Also I began to experience an inner peace that had eluded me all my life.

It is easy to take something to numb the pain, or to have an operation to remove an offending organ that is filled with disease. Yet, when the mind refuses to look at the painful and sometimes terrifying memories hidden within us, we are robbed of both energy and peace, and disease can set in, or our bodies can become stiff and twisted as the years go by, reflecting our rigid and unbending attitudes.

I will never forget the sight of the ‘snow birds’ hobbling around in the warmth of Florida’s winter. Superimposed upon that image is an eighty-year-old woman riding a horse.

First Published in the Ballarat News, April 12, 1995

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