And every time I do my exercises, I have a goal in my mind: to strengthen a special muscle that was paralyzed after my injury. To fulfill that goal, I’ve had to focus my mind on that muscle; in my friend Elizabeth Castagna’s words, I’ve had to make my mind speak to it. When I’m resting, I meditate following the directions of the guide’s voice (as I tell in another chapter). And as I’m breathing, I focus on each muscle or organ of my body that the guide indicates.
So, every year, every day, every time since the injury, my mind has had to concentrate on my body’s different elements. That’s why wherever I am, a sense of my body is there with me: a sense of my whole body, of my whole self. I feel my body; I know where every part of it, every muscle, is. Every muscle is speaking to me, and I can hear it.