Weight Gain--and Loss--in Relation to the Energy Body

Exploring the relationship between bLa (soul) energy and lu (body) energy

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In the evenings, I took daily baths in a giant modern tub, having just started a 21-day treatment of Tibetan five-nectars herbal bath therapy. I was doing the bath therapy for a neurological/spinal thing, and sometimes part of my “bath therapy” included taking a few sips of good Bordeaux while binge-watching all the films of philosopher-director Denys Arcand.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about weight--specifically, I have been pondering what might be going on at the level of the energy bodies when we have sudden weight gain (or weight loss). 

During the recent Christmas holidays, I spent a few weeks in the Outer Banks, at a lovely house right on the beach.  And from the get-go I should clarify that I consider myself a “beach person.” I am happiest when I am near the ocean, and my nervous system always feels most regulated when I am near the ocean, and my entire being seems to relax when I am near the ocean, and my voice is more open and free, and my limbs move more fluidly, and I can really and truly breathe without constriction. For me there is, near the Atlantic in particular, a sense of “rightness” and of “home” that I can’t intellectually explain but can certainly somatically feel.  I smell the sea air and my whole being expands and laughs.  So yes, I am a beach person. Who lives in the mountains.  And pines for the shores. But loves the mountains and valleys and the Hudson River nevertheless...we’ll discuss that conundrum some other time, perhaps.   

Anyway, because I am a beach person in soul who lives in the mountains in body, I usually try to schedule a trip to the Atlantic shores during the winter months--partly because one of my very wise doctors prescribed this (oh yes, he did) very long ago, and partly because winter in the mountains has become, for a frail-boned person like me, literally quite dangerous.

So. Fast-forward to the Outer Banks. To the beautiful and quirky and quaint and just-this-side-of-weird Duck, NC, where I had the good fortune of spending three weeks taking care of a perfect Doodle while my friends visited family in the UK.  Every day I took the dog out to the beach, and walked barefoot in the sand, and dipped my toes in the water, and drank in the sea air, and marvelled at the sunrises and sunsets (you get both on the Outer Banks--it’s like being sandwiched in orange glory.).  I also did the usual eight hours of non-stop work on the computer, but who doesn’t these days? I had my ocean, and I had a perfect dog, and I was not in danger of falling on any ice, and I had already met the town psychic (of course) and the town crystal-whisperer, and life felt very relaxed.  

In the evenings, I took daily baths in a giant modern tub, having just started a 21-day treatment of Tibetan five-nectars herbal bath therapy.  I was doing the bath therapy for a neurological/spinal thing, and sometimes part of my “bath therapy” included taking a few sips of good bordeaux while binge-watching all the films of philosopher-director Denys Arcand.  I don’t usually drink that much these days, and those details (of French wine and French film) were not included in the original Tibetan instructions, but a friend had given me that marvelous bottle of Bordeaux for Christmas, and to me these extras added great benefit.  Just don’t tell my Tibetan doctor, ha ha.

Anyway, much to my surprise, I discovered that by the end of those three weeks that I had lost a lot of weight.  I could tell I had lost weight not be weighing myself (which I never do) but by the way my clothes fit.  I could finally, for instance, close the zipper of my giant six-foot-long Land’s End hard core Nor'easter puffer jacket over my inconveniently large breasts. 

 This surprised me, because I was not trying to lose weight. I mean, I’d love to lose some weight--the thought is still almost always at the back of my mind, but way in the way back--but right now I am not making any effort to lose weight.  The two main reasons for this--which I may or may not elaborate on later--are that 1) I had anorexia as a teenager  and 2) back in 2017, after an unexpected and rapid weight gain as I was taking steps to increase my bone density, my Tibetan doctor said: “Maybe this is just what your body needs to weigh right now.”

That statement--which is so very Tibetan and so very not neurotic-American--really liberated me. It not only liberated me from trying to figure out why or how I had gained weight so rapidly (for then, as with now, the weight gain had occurred without any changes in diet or exercise or lifestyle); it also liberated me from caring. By that I mean caring in an obsessive way, or a body-conscious way, or in a body-image way, or in a hot-factor kind of way.  I felt that I have moved past all that particular brand of neurosis.  Finally. I settled into my newly-heavy bodily state and stayed there. 

And yet here I am going through a similar episode again. An episode involving a rabidly ballooning of body, without any apparent cause.  And questioning it. And trying to figure out the reasons.

And let’s not forget the fact that even Western doctors are aware that rapid weight loss or weight gain could be a sign of an underlying medical condition.  And that Western doctor also factor in genetics to any issue concerning body type or weight. But my main point at this point in the narrative is to stress that I had not been trying to lose weight in NC.  There were no changes in my diet or in exercise-lifestyle. The only other lifestyle changes during those few weeks were, as we already know: proximity to the ocean, the Tibetan herbal bath therapy, and a short binge (with minimal consumption) of French wine and French films.  And proximity to a perfect dog. Let’s never discount the healing power of dogs. And--oh, I just remembered--daily use of a Tibetan singing bowl on my heart chakra, tuned to F. 

I decided at the time that the weight loss had to be due to the herbal baths, (with the French mindset coming in a close second), and was quite pleased with this unexpected side-effect. 

As a person who once had an eating disorder, and starved myself, and weighed myself daily, and had completely lost a healthy concept of and relationship to food, and basically transformed myself into a ghost and--in hindsight--seemed to have my soul replaced by a quite self-destructive being--it was nice to drop some pounds--some boobage--without effort.  It was like a nice perk. Each time I zipped up my giant Nor’easter monstrosity of a jacket, and the zipper glided unimpededly past the point where it usually strained to get past my breasts, I felt a strange sort of triumph.  But I also tried to remain mindful about just how triumphant I felt, and my Inner Buddhist would remind me that we are all so much more than our bodies. 

My slightly-slimmer body and I left the Outer Banks and continued south to my favorite rustic retreat center on the shores of North Myrtle Beach.  More beach, more peace, more heaven, no cell service and no wifi.  By body reacted in kind. The zipper zipped. 

And then in February I returned to New York.  I’ve spent Februaries in upstate New York before, and February is always close enough to March for me to be able to endure a few more weeks of winter.  But this was a February such as I have never seen. This was February in the time of climate crisis.  This was the beginning of a new Ice Age. 

I was staying at a friend’s house in Palenville, taking care of her many vibrant plants and her one timid cat, and I just wasn’t prepared for so much ice. It turns out she lives on a private road that is never plowed. Ever. The town won’t pay for it. And neither will of the residents (many of them those angry-Trumperswith keep-out signs). So for months, the two mile road had been left unplowed, and by the time I arrived--driving a minivan without snow tires, by the way--the roads were like skating rinks.  So was my friend’s driveway. It was too icy for someone like me to walk outside at all, so I basically did not venture outside for almost three weeks. It was just too hazardous. 

 And I know some of you might be thinking that I am/was overreacting, and that a simple pair of crampons would do the trick, but my bones break really easily. And I have broken enough in the past year to not want to put any additional body parts at risk.  Plus, there’s the fear of falling.  That is the most challenging part. And that, it turns out, is the thing that has the most destructive effect on the body.  All that fear, all that adrenaline, all that regret (for having left SC), all that questioning (why don’t these people help one another and agree to pay someone to plow their streets?) all that cortisol.   

I’m a bit embarrassed to admit that I had such extreme reactions to the ice--to the weather!  I’m a New Englander!  Especially after just having completed a three week meditation retreat, in which I reached a true and rare state of peace and contentment that was delicious and healing to experience.  But sometimes there is no logical explanation to how or when or why our systems might react to situations perceived as traumatic or triggering.  And sometimes, after we do retreats, our we find ourselves facing new crises as an opportunity to release old patterns (because, as they say, the Universe gives you only what you can handle, and after retreat you can handle more?). But anyway, because I was stuck out there in the boonies, surrounded by relentless ice, with no means or opportunity to even step outside without risking a fall, I felt unsafe. I felt unsupported.  I felt trapped.  I felt immensely agitated at times.  I can’t explain.  Can I blame the Mars retrograde?  

Then, lo and behold, I started to gain weight, even though I was eating very little because I could not leave the house, and my body started to balloon out again, rapidly. It was a strange sensation, as if I were being pumped up with air.  Or wind.  

 Maybe the trauma-response was rerouting my winds somehow, and my body was taking on this extra padding as some kind of protective force, to compensate for my general lack of natal bLa energy. (More about bLa energy below...)