Create SPACE by letting go.
Something I’ve never really been good about is showing weakness. My perfectionistic obsessiveness always brought me to a place of pushing to be perfect when I really just needed to relax…
Sometimes in life we need to take it easy. Anything we push in life surely will go away in one way or another. In my case, its battling this tendonitis. It started a year ago in my left wrist. I was jumping into handstands, crow, anything upside down. I still do these things but at that point in my life I was aggressively pushing the pain out of my mind and thinking it would go away in time. I am 27 years old and to this day (knock on wood) I’ve never broken a bone, I’ve never sprained anything and really never been hurt. Anything I have ever done has served me well and anything that hurts always went away. Time sure has changed, because I’m starting to really feel pain if I work too hard in one form of exercise…I wake up in back/shoulder pain once and awhile and realize I am no longer invincible like my ego thought I was.
My tendonitis got worse….I went to teacher training and spent the whole training working against myself with this wrist problem. When I got home from training, it got so bad that I finally went to a hand therapist. I didn’t feel things were really helping since It was just in a brace for months so I took up acupuncture. I also felt that that only helped lesson the pain for a short while. Keep in mind through all this I was still getting upside down on my mat and not modifying for shit.
Finally we tried natural injections and within a month, everything was gone. Woohooooo. It’s been about 4 or 5 months now with a good wrist.
Now my tendonitis is back and it’s in my shoulder, around my rotator cuff and down my upper arm. I couldn’t sleep for days and it felt like constant aching. I went to my chiropractor and acupuncture doc again and we are working through this.
I am also doing a 30 day yoga challenge this month.
ohhhhh the power of an addictive crazy person. Things are different now though…I have been to 6 classes in the last 5 days and have mixed in Bikram, Yin and in my normal power classes, I’m dropping my knees in chatarunga and not getting upside down. As much as I have mini panic attacks when I’m holding a chair pose prayer twist and the teacher says we can jump into side-crow if that’s in our practice, I stay still…I know now that my ego has brought me injury, and my ego will continue to try to give me injury but only if i let it.
So I learn to let go…
Quiet the ego down that tells me I will not be a good teacher if I cant do EVERYTHING.
It’s so important to be aware of how we treat our bodies and we have to mentally check in with our intentions. In my case, I had the intention of looking good. I came to my mat to prove to everyone in the room that I could follow all the teachers orders in grace. But that’s pure bullshit now isn’t it? No one gives a flying care what you do on your mat. They also don’t care what you do in your life. Everything is all up in our heads to try and wear this special mask when we are all not that special.
When we injure ourselves and continue to ignore what our bodies are trying to tell us, which is to relax and lay off a little, we cause further pain.
We need to use yoga to free our ego. Become whole. Become quiet. We come together to share the energy of breathing and moving and living…but coming to yoga to show off your damn gymnastics skills, especially on injury will only burn you out. This month I’m learning to be gentle with my body and mind….because I want this mind and body to last longer than my shitty ego sometimes:)
So create space. let it go….let go the need to be so much more than you are. be happy with yourself because you are already perfect.
