The Fine Art of ‘Knowing’ Your Body
/By Cynthia Toussaint
Three times in my life I knew something big, tragic and seemingly illogical was going to happen to me. All were trauma and health related, though I didn’t know that when my gut spoke to me with complete assuredness.
Against all naysayers and doubters, my first two premonitions were eerily on target and heartbreakingly so. Trouble is, my third intuition is knocking at the door, and if I can’t change fate, I won’t survive to see my next birthday.
Can I turn my future around to save myself?
I don’t think there’s anything supernatural about my success at prognostication. The only special power I possess is an ability to tune into my inner wisdom and to trust it. As I learned more about the connection between mind and body – the bodymind, if you will – I’ve come to believe that my body unconsciously speaks to my mind and the premonitions are the conscious expression of that communication.
My first hunch started when I was 17. With great interest, I read a magazine article about anorexia, as I’d almost died from this eating disorder five years prior. At the end of the piece, when the writer incorrectly stated that some anorexics can’t have children after being cured, my gut knew, unequivocally, that would be me.
I became obsessed, speaking endlessly about this knowing to friends and family, always landing on deaf ears because I appeared perfectly healthy. I then shared this fear with my gynecologist and even sought out a psychologist. After both assured me I’d have as many children as I wanted when the time was right, I knew they were wrong. My reasoning for not being able to have a child would morph from anorexia to a future, unknown health problem, one that would rear its head years later.
Meanwhile, at age 20, I regained my footing and was living a seemingly perfect life. I was in college, studying my great passions (singing, dancing and acting), got an agent and was auditioning for TV and film roles. Then out of the blue, another obsessive, dreadful foreknowledge came to me: my show business career would end when I was 21.
Again, my certainty landed on incredulous ears. “You’re making no sense, Cynthia” and “You’ve got your whole career ahead of you” and other reassurances came from all directions. But, again, I knew they were wrong.
To meet the deadline that was amplifying in my head, I hustled to get my headshots and resumes done. I even recall yelling over the phone at my photographer for taking too much time. He couldn’t fathom my rush, especially when I paid to have someone drive my precious pics from his Bay Area studio to my LA dorm overnight.
Like a cosmic special delivery, three months before my 22nd birthday, a ballet injury triggered Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS). Though it would be 13 years before my diagnosis, piece by piece, CRPS dismantled my performing career.
I managed to dance some in a Las Vegas illusion act, posed for Playboy and tried like hell to get hired as a TV host in LA. As a last-ditch effort, I sent hundreds of letters to industry folk and got an agent to represent me for sitting jobs as a “special booking,” all to no avail. No one would hire me due to my significant disability and limitations.
Back on the baby front, my first premonition was still bubbling away. Just before my partner John and I planned to get pregnant, my gynecologist advised I needed a LEEP procedure to remove dysplasia. Tragically, that procedure spread CRPS into my cervix and vagina, lighting the area on neuropathic fire. As a result, I was unable to have intercourse through the rest of my child-bearing years.
No career, no child. My premonitions were two for two, batting a thousand.
You can imagine my concern when in my early 40’s a new premonition took hold. I started sharing with John that I knew I would die before reaching age 65. This time around, there were no doubters.
My foretelling seemed to be playing out right on schedule, when at 59 I developed the most aggressive form of breast cancer – and then again two years later when I experienced a recurrence, followed by a year of painful, life-threatening complications caused by my overactive immune system.
But this time, unlike my previous two knowings, I’m pushing back.
I’m certain I’m still alive because I now understand that trauma drives illness, and since my first cancer diagnosis, I continue to do a ton of trauma release work while devoting myself to self-care.
If my next PET/CT scan is clean, I’ll reach the three year disease-free mark, which is considered by most oncologists to be a cure for Triple Negative breast cancer. Free and clear, as they say.
Still, I’m praying that nine months down the road, on New Year’s Eve, I’ll be blowing out candles on my 65th birthday cake. If I do, I’ll know that trauma release, self-care, and giving myself the agency and action to plot my course, allowed me to change my fate.
As those candles go out, my wish for all of us seemingly fated to suffer with chronic pain and other illness, will be that we will listen intimately to our whispering intuitions. And maybe, just maybe, their words will light our way.
Cynthia Toussaint is the founder and spokesperson at For Grace, a non-profit dedicated to bettering the lives of women in pain. She has lived with CRPS and multiple co-morbidities for over four decades. Cynthia is the author of “Battle for Grace: A Memoir of Pain, Redemption and Impossible Love.”
