Our Wonderful Bodies
Guest POST by ANA COSTA
How wonderful are our bodies?
They heal, they persevere, they lift heavy weights, and they even find that extra physical strength and speed of reaction when our dear ones are in danger. We put our bodies through their paces, and yet, when they are screaming at us to slow down or stop, we just shrug our shoulders and keep going with what we are doing.
So why do we struggle so much to listen?
Bear with me while we travel back in time for a minute…
Seven years ago I fractured my collarbone. Snapped it in two. An amazing medical team took care of me and fixed my body with a scary surgery. I thought the scar would be the worst of my problems. Oh how wrong I was!
For unknown reasons (and multiple tests have been done to figure this out) I was left with recurring nerve pain. It comes and goes and it is quite unpredictable. Sometimes I sit around and feel sorry for myself as I take another pill that puts me out of commission for however long this last bout of pain lasts. Other times I choose to sit with the pain and discomfort and listen.
So what have I learnt so far? Slow down.
‘My lovely scar originates where the star touches, and travels into sunset where my hair touches.’
Like everyone else, I have an ego, and I don’t want to let go of my achievements. When I finally have the strength and flexibility to achieve an asana or I finally lift that heavy weight without feeling like I am about to collapse my pride and ego don’t want to let me stop and lose all that goodness of all the work I have put in. I have, many times, continued my practice and/or life as before. I have pushed my body to the limit until there was nothing else to do but to stop altogether.
Guess which option bruised my ego the most: slowing down or stopping? Trying to lift my arm and feeling nothing but numbness and disobedience has brought me to tears. The fear that this was it. That I had damaged my shoulder beyond recoverability. This was scary.
So where am I trying to get with the longest sidetrack to a blog post? ‘LISTEN’ is the imperative word here. All capitals. Yes, I am shouting this word from my post to you.
As I say many times to my students, it’s okay to feel discomfort, but never pain. If there is pain, stop and listen. Why did this pain arise? Were you doing something that hurt? If so, isn’t it worth either modifying what you are doing or skipping it altogether? Maybe telling your teacher that it hurts so they can work with you on variations to keep your health intact.
Why are you clinging on to practising the fullest expression of each pose, if one or many of those are no longer serving you? Isn’t that why you started your yoga/exercise practice in the first place? To get stronger, healthier, happier? When it hurts, sit down. Wrap a blanket around yourself and listen. Your body is telling you what to do. Don’t hurt it any further.
Guys, we, yoga teachers, train and practise so much to learn variations that will (hopefully!) serve everyone through the different stages of their practice. Just know that taking any variation that is not the full expression of the pose doesn’t mean you can’t, it just means you won’t right now.
You can always recover and come back to it. Your body will remember all the mechanics when you are ready to return. But have that holiday when your body asks you to. And celebrate your scars if you have them. They are the yellow bricks on your yellow brick road.
Share your ‘slowing down journey’ with me using #ListenToYourYogiBody. I admire you for listening. And I will wait for you on the mat, where variations are the true heroes.
ANA X
PS If you’ve found this post of interest please share as other people you know may find it interesting too…