132- Come closer. I have something personal to share.

What I am about to tell you is probably too personal. It may be TMI’ish, but I feel there is something important and widely applicable here.

I have had a recent problem with a strange odor, and I have noticed that it tends to be stronger in one armpit. In case you were wondering, it’s only the armpits. I don’t have any funk anywhere. In fact, I shower 2-3 times per day. Being clean and smelling good are important to me.

My daughter had this odd, strong scent, and it really bothered me, so when I started smelling it on me, I wanted to get to the bottom of the issue FAST. I looked at our diet and thought it might have been the chicken sausage from Costco that we were enjoying.

I don’t normally eat processed foods, and this is one reason why. Funky stuff (and funky smells) happen when we eat stuff that no longer looks like what is started out as.

I never really had a problem with body odor, although I suddenly remember having a problem in middle school. At the time, I attributed it to my raging hormones. Plus, that was aeons ago…three lifetimes ago actually.

What’s also odd about this odor is that it seems completely random. I can shower and smell within 10 minutes, or I can be sweaty for an hour with no problem, then have the scent, and then it completely goes away. Explain that one, because this is not a light scent. Perhaps I am becoming a werewolf and have a suddenly super keen sniffer, but I doubt that.

Lately, I have had the problem much less. I figured that my diet is cleaner, and I have been basically vegetarian, so I don’t have any meat rotting in my body. I also have been doing a lot of work in therapy, including trauma work, and I have been listening to my body more.

It seems that I get this scent when I feel unsafe. I have noticed the smell come and go with interactions with certain people, or with certain uncomfortable situations.

Something very interesting happened today in my individual session. I experienced a memory of when my father used to spank me. Spanking was something I accepted as normal, so I have always swept the experience under the rug and downplayed it. Today, I had a vivid memory of the experience, especially of the fear I felt each time it happened.

Directly after going back into this experience, I had that strange odor. I had been sitting in this uncomfortably hot office sweating for an hour and a half with no problem, and never had the funky odor until the spanking memory came up.

So, if this is a response to feeling unsafe, I can be thankful for it, despite how unpleasant and embarrassing it can be. Let me clarify that by unsafe, I don’t just mean physically. I mean psychologically, emotionally, and spiritually as well.

I want to take this opportunity to thank my body for letting me know that I am with an unsafe person, since I seem to have not been able to listen to my body before. I am sure my body spoke to me before, and I was just not tuned in.

My body is telling me when I am in an unsafe situation, and I value what my body is telling me. I choose to listen to my body, because obviously I didn’t listen to it for a long, long time.

The woman’s intuition is stronger than reason, and the body tells us all we need to know, if we only just listen, or in this case, smell.

 

 

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