Strength: Begin again. Begin anew.
In 2010 I began my Yoga practice having recently had a hysterectomy as a result of tumors on my cervix. Within a year I was to have a lumbar laminectomy. When I began my Yoga practice, I wasn't looking for a spiritual transformation of any sort. I was looking to move my body...safely.
Since the earliest days of my yoga practice I have lost a second brother to suicide and my father 6 weeks later. I've been through a divorce, had additional herniated disks, wrist injuries, broken fingers, long Covid, torn tendons and now a surgically repaired set of tendons with a bone break in my left foot.
To say I've returned to the mat a "woman in need of healing" over and over is an understatement.
“If I do what I can to nurture my emotional, physical and even spiritual body then I am able to bring myself to the mat no matter what the circumstance. ”
As a hot power yogini, I practice with purpose, intention and passion. There is a fire in my practice that often must be "reigned in" for the sake of being non harming. Ahimsa, being non-harming, is one of the theoretical practices of yoga.
So, how have I come to find that the yoga mat is the perfect place to return from injury, illness, grief...long breaks from my practice?
When I see my yoga as a place of healing rather than a torturous fitness routine I am able to truly give myself to the practice. I can allow the practice itself to heal me. If I do what I can to nurture my emotional, physical and even spiritual body then I am able to bring myself to the mat no matter what the circumstance.
This means acknowledging that ALL of me is not injured. The whole is the goal...to be whole physically, emotionally and spiritually may not all happen simultaneously.
I was taught early on that if all I do is breathe with intention for the length of a class then I am practicing Yoga. I was also taught that because one part of the body is unwell and/or healing doesn't mean that the rest of the self is incapable.
One of my early teachers, Matthew Sanford, is paralyzed from the waist down. In my first Yoga Teacher Training he taught the entire weekend on the "spine". It was amazing to learn from him that yoga is truly a mind body connection that is transformative in its purest form. Seeing him and another Baptiste Yoga friend, Veteran Dan Nevins (a double amputee), practice with their limitations has shown me that I am capable as well.
I may require blocks, taking a warrior pose on my knees, making my way into plank pose on my knuckles or to side plank on my forearm to accomodate my injuries. Accommodate, I do! Why allow one part of my body to eliminate the entire practice? There is peace to be found while in community on my yoga mat.
Some days my body shows up whole but my mind and spirit feel unwell. Other days my mind and spirit are well but my body is and feels wounded. When I can remove my ego enough to allow for each aspect of ME to arrive just as it is on any given day then I can truly be on my mat in any "condition".
My mat IS my healing space.