How I found humbleness and compassion within…
I had a fall right before the holidays on a staircase and landed hard on the edge of the stair on the sacrum and coccyx (tail bone). It was pretty bad at first, bending over and straightening up after was excruciating. Sitting normally was out the question. I think the years of yoga practice speed up my healing exponentially, as within four days things were much more manageable, and within a week I was back to normal range of motion and activity. It’s said that yoga makes you more resilient and able to handle stress in a different way, in a manageable way and I could feel that happening despite the pain.
Over the holidays to honor the body and healing that had to happen I did not have a strong frequency of a physical yoga practice (asanas), but focused mainly on my daily breathing practice (pranayama) and restorative yoga that was accessible to me while recouping (of course with modifications to give TLC to that low back!). And I was really good with that…hard for Pitta mind to do, but necessary.
Back to the office with regular hours things started shifting, I did not feel I was in quite the right form and ease of movement giving massage therapy, but did not realize that although I was not experiencing the injury site pain, “things were off”. Weird new pains and headaches were springing up in unexpected and old places.
Having the Pitta mind and a tendency to desire perfection in my own practice (a thing I am constantly working on – affording my Self the same compassion that I easily and naturally open to for clients and students is challenging for me) made this very worrisome. I was clinging to the idea that each hurdle life places in front of us is for a teaching that we must receive in order to evolve as a human. I had to find and practice compassion for my Self so I did not make things worse, or create a new injury.
Fast forward to this week – I had class with my yoga teacher twice, Monday and Wednesday. Normally I take Mary’s class once a week, but am transitioning to a new time so there was some overlap. Monday night class was an eye opener as to what was happening in the pelvis. I was shocked to find out how different the two sides were behaving in standing poses. I had lost a good deal of the depth and freedom of movement that I was previously able to explore before the falling accident. Certain poses felt like I was running bone into bone, things were drastically out of place. By Wednesday, I wanted to stay home and not face it, but kept hearing a gentle “go, go, go to class, it will help” from the intuitive self. I told myself on the drive in I would not push hard, and go easy, and THAT WAS OKAY. I’m often reminding clients to not go 100% with things and wanted, needed to take my own advice. That just a little was enough. In class I found it humbling and beautiful to eek out what was possible and what was not, exploring the asanas with a new sense of care and deliberate slowness. Yoga is an amazing diagnostic tool for finding what is up in your body!
This experience has caused me to have to discover the basics again, which will only help in my sharing yoga teachings with clients and the world. It’s helped me to remember what it’s like for a new student or massage client coming to me that has not received bodywork or practiced yoga before.
It’s also been a reminder that it’s okay to not be the best at something. It’s okay to meet your Self where you are today, and not in some abstract view of what you once were. Today is really all you have anyway so why not meet it clearly, with Self love, compassion and care?
I wanted to share this with you so you know that I “get it”, I get the pain and the dealing and making it through. We just have to come to a point where we try to make an intervention on our own behalf with the foundation of Self compassion, going as slow as a sloth sometimes and accepting that that process is okay.
Yoga is going to help me bring some balance back to this body, and so are my self care team of amazing practitioners in Rochester NY. I will have muscle, soft tissue and meridian work with myofascial release and Shiatsu with Kori Tolbert, and will have the spine set straight with Dr. Charlie Shaw my chiropractor. My yoga teacher, Mary Aman, is like my physical and mental active recovery specialist with her compassionate, effective and brilliant approach to teaching Iyengar style yoga. My self care helpers will help point me down the healing path, but it’s up to me and how I approach the self care, self compassion and self love that will determine how this healing process goes. YOU ultimately are the only one who will take care of YOU.
Be strong like a crystal that holds the warmth and energy of light within to keep expanding and growing…ever changing yet always beautiful.
Namaste.
Julie