My Dscomfort with Yoga

"We have to be aware of the line between pain and discomfort.  We need to be right at that place of discomfort but not in the place of pain.  For pain is our bodies telling us we have gone too far.  But, discomfort is change.  We have to feel the discomfort to make a change."

Miss Yogi always has the right words.  Or maybe it is the way I hear the words the right way.  So I am thinking about a friend who recently started a yoga practice.  He was complaining about a weird pain in his chest during a pose.  I was trying to think about how to tell him to breath right into the discomfort and it would relax.  But if it is true pain, back off.  This is exactly what Miss Yogi is discussing.  And this is exactly why I have been blessed to find a practice studio that teaches the entire practice of yoga, not just the poses.  I have been doing yoga for years off and on.  I have done videos and classes at the recreation center.  I have modified my flexibility and learned to breath.  But it was in my current studio that I realized that yoga can be more then just a low impact, easy exercise for one lazy girl who hates to work out.  Since joining Solar Yoga, I have started to read up on the various yoga philosophies.  I have found that yoga is a spiritual practice, and I end every practice with a prayer thanking God for allowing me to practice in this moment.

So back to the concept of discomfort.  Yoga helps me survive.  I have learned to identify the line of pain and discomfort.  I have learned to breath through the discomfort and that creates change.  Sometimes I think back to times in my life when I could have given up.  There are times when I could have crawled in bed and decided that was it.  Yet, I breathed through it and didn't think much more about it.  If the pain was more then I could handle on my own, I got some groovy drugs.  Did you know that two years ago I could not move my arm more then a few inches from my chest?  I could not lift my arm to shave my arm pit.  In fact, I got an infection in the loose flap of skin that covered the hollow where five lymph nodes were removed.  But, I went to physical therapy.  I insisted that I wanted more flexibility then good enough.  I had people tell me to accept that my arm would only move so far.  But, I was determined to get my flexibility back.  And I did.  With a lot of discomfort and breathing into that discomfort, I can do a full twist and almost reverse prayer palms behind my back.  I changed even when they said I couldn't.

Tomorrow, I have a MRI.  I will lay on the table, move into the machine with my face in a cage, and breath through the air raid throbbing of the scan.  I will go home, put the CD in my computer and look.  I have no control over my disease, but I can breath through the discomfort.  Yoga taught me that.

And friend, next time you get that weird cramp in your rib cage, I bet that is a little muscle that you don't often use.  It is telling you that it is there.  Say hello back.  Fill it with your breath and ask it to release.  And there you go, I bet she will relax.  It is the discomfort that brings you change, how cool is that.