I will never forget the look on the nurse’s face when she walked in to the hospital room and was expecting to see an elderly woman in her 80s. Instead she saw me, a young woman aged 43. She said “But you are too young for a total hip replacement!” and I could tell she was gutted for me. I had been suffering for sometime with my hip pain.

I had a session with my coach Karen and mentioned to her how alien it would feel a piece of my body being taken away. I was already mourning the loss of this body part and I could not get my head around a foreign object being there instead. With reactions like these from the medical profession, I was left feeling scared and vulnerable.

I have an auto-immune disease and this condition was chewing away at my hip. I would quite often curse my body and push myself to heal. “Damn you body! Why won’t you heal?! WTF is wrong with you?!” Knowing about the mind-body connection I would feel frustrated “You should be able to heal yourself, what is wrong with you?!”.

I didn’t realise that my poor body had done everything it could to help sustain me and it was struggling. My body needed my love not my cursing. It needed my warm compassionate embrace not me being pissed off with it.

I started to feel gentle love for myself and I began to accept that my old hip had done everything it could for me and helped me as long as it could. How about welcoming in this new part of my body with love? As I did so I felt a wave of compassion wash through me. I was more able to see that an amazing quality of life and ease of movement was waiting for me.

The days leading up to the operation I did a successful surgery meditation and after the operation affirmations to help my body heal. The operation was hugely successful.

The lesson here? Love don’t curse. Be kind, gentle and loving and the body responds and such beautiful ways. We can’t heal in an environment of hate but we can heal in an environment of love.

With kindness,