Pain by Tom Berke
Like a mother protecting her child, my body closed around me, around the pain. I was closing down. I felt helpless to do anything.
I sat with the pain, observing what it felt like, how it radiated. Was it throbbing, sticking or burning? It was pulsating and radiating down the outside of my left arm. I tried to see what movements I could make to diminish the pain. Moving my head to the left intensified it. Sitting (and no doubt collapsing) made matters worse. If I tilted my head forward or to the right the pain disappeared. Opening my chest and rolling my shoulders back (shoulder loop) totally eliminated the pain. This opening, however, was antithetical to what I felt the pain demanding. And it was hard to maintain.
Yoga has taught me a great deal. Rodney Yee (one of my favorite teachers) told me not to run from pain so quickly. This was an alien concept-not running from or masking the pain. My friends think I am strange because I don't "pop" the latest painkiller the instant I hurt. Pain as a teacher was almost as bizarre a notion.
The protecting instinct reminded me of when I was new to yoga. My body was closed, tight and tense from years of gripping, years of fearing pain, which had visited so often. Yoga acted on my body like the peeling of an onion - layer by layer getting deeper into the body. Removing fears. Liberating the body and the mind. Was the yoga now liberating me from pain?
In yoga I had learned to release, yet here I was experiencing my body naturally tightening. Yoga has taught me that the more I grip, the more pain and restriction I feel. Opening brings liberation. Letting go of fear, and learning to not grip is part of yoga's gift.
This injury was reversing that; almost forcing me to grip and move back into fear. Even though I realized that liberation from pain comes from being able to release, from letting go: I saw that fear was the enemy.
When I am gentle with my mind and body, I begin to regain the ability to release and relax. I find that I am very impatient with myself. I remember where I was before the injury, how much I was able to relax into postures. I remember the floating, light, grounded feeling. When I push myself into these memories, I just create tension and more gripping. I know from years of repeated injury-recovery cycles that I need to be patient. I know that healing will come. It sometimes doesn't seem that way though. Once it took a year; another time a year and one-half. But things eventually worked out. Patience is hard but I do have faith. Perhaps this is wisdom that comes with age - patience and faith built from experience. If I'm patient long enough perhaps I'll be able to face the fear and move past it.
When Rodney Yee told me to sit with pain, it was such an alien concept. The lessons I have learned, the progress I have made, the kindness to myself, learning to let the healing process flow, all have shown me the wisdom of his words. Sitting with pain mindfully is like sitting in any asana: if one allows the body to open, to use its own wisdom, then wondrous lessons will be learned.