Love as Practice When the Body Is Angry
Love as Practice When the Body Is Angry
When bell hooks says that love is an action and a practice, not just a feeling, something in me wakes up.
And if I’m honest, what wakes up first is anger.
I say this as someone navigating separation. I am angry with him. Angry with how things unfolded. Angry with myself for not seeing things sooner, for not leaving sooner, for trying to make something work long after my body had already decided it was unsafe.
There is also a deeper anger. The kind that touches old places. Childhood places. Places where being dismissed, violated, or discarded doesn’t just hurt, it reactivates survival.
When I feel violated or disrespected, I cannot access love in the way bell hooks describes it. I become sharp. Defensive. My communication becomes violent, not physically, but energetically. I brace. I protect. I strike before I’m struck.
This is what the body does when love starts to feel like survival.
When I am loved, my body feels light. I feel more open to the goodness of life. I lean toward possibility. I soften without effort. There is space in my chest. Space in my thinking. Space to be generous with myself and others.
When I am surviving a relationship, my body tells a different story. Pressure in my chest. Pressure in my head. Disorientation. Anger that flares when boundaries are crossed or when I feel unseen or misread. A constant low-grade alertness.
The body knows the difference long before the mind catches up.
What my body has taught me about love, and what I tried to ignore for a long time, is this: your body gives you the data immediately. Where you go mentally when things feel off. How your breath changes. How your nervous system responds. All of that is information.
And yet so many of us, especially women, femmes, Black women and femmes, are conditioned to talk ourselves out of what we know. We are taught not to be dramatic. To be understanding. To appreciate effort even when care is missing. To override our sense of knowing in order to keep the peace or to prove we are lovable, flexible, chosen.
But love as a practice cannot require the erasure of the body.
If love is care, responsibility, and respect, then learning to listen to the body is not indulgent. It is foundational.
This is the work I’m returning to now. Not rushing toward forgiveness. Not bypassing anger. But letting the body speak so love can become something practiced with integrity, not something survived.