THE WALKING WOUNDED, HEALING

Some days the studio seems like a haven for the walking wounded.  This past Thursday was just such a day.

I hadn't been in to practice for 9 days, having been in a car accident the week prior.  When I got there I was feeling a bit fragile -- still a bit sore and a bit sad.  But I knew that I was ready to come back, taking it slow and easy and modifying many of the asanas to care for my healing body.    Karen noted aloud that I had been in an accident…then mentioned her own toe injury, another student had taken a fall, and on any given day there are hip and wrist issues, lower back pains, those recovering from surgery…

We all show up at one time or another with bodies that need tending, healing, strengthening, and limbering.  My guess is that some of us want to push ourselves back to health -- or some notion of health from bygone days.  It's often better, I think, to recognize a "new normal" for ourselves and be content with what "is" in the present while we find our "this is my body today" asana edge.  It serves no one to re-injure ourselves.  Plus, it's great practice in self-compassion and gratitude.

I found this on the mat on Thursday.  I had spent the previous nine days mourning the fact of the accident, bemoaning my disrupted life, and grieving losing my totaled car -- a little Prius that I loved.  I was moving through the class, following Karen's instruction slowly and intentionally, aware of my body in every moment.  Then she directed us to lie on our stomachs and "just relax…slump your body and let go of any tension or striving…"  I did and suddenly my mat was wet with tears.

Here I was at my beloved yoga studio, surrounded by familiar faces, all of us showing up to this practice on that particular day likely with our own list of aches, pains, and griefs.  I was overcome with gratitude for my bruised but functioning and recovering body, for the fact that no one in the accident was seriously injured, for the refuge I find in yoga that strengthens not just my body, but my spirit as well.

When we were then directed to raise our bodies to our hands and knees, the first thing my eyes landed upon was the bouquet of bright, brilliant, beautiful amazing gifts of nature in the center of the room -- Mike's prize-winning dahlias.  He nurtures these beauties in a year-round cycle of planting, growing, harvesting, and resting…and along the way they bring such joy to so many just by their presence, including being in a yoga studio, on a Thursday, in a place where grief and joy are the "edge" we find when we slow down and feel it all -- body and soul -- every single day. May each of us find such brilliance in our own imperfect lives, ever changing bodies, ever shining spirits. ©

Namaste...donnajurene