And Then The Pain Disappeared

Twenty years ago, I injured my iliotibial band while training for a half marathon. I went for physical therapy but it didn't take and for years, I couldn't run more than about two and a half miles without pain. I gave up running and I gave up triathlons (because running), but I took solace in the fact that I could still hike and swim.

Three or four years ago it occurred to me that maybe they'd come up with some new ideas about treating ITB problems. So I googled and found out that, indeed, the stretch and massage protocol in use in the 1990s didn't help a lot of people, and they were recommending strengthening instead. So I joined the gym and after a few months on the weight machines found I could run three miles, three and a half... four.... 

And then, in a fit of optimism or insanity, I signed up for a marathon.

During my eight-mile run yesterday, my ITB started to feel stiff. And then the outside of my knee started to ache. This is a bad sign: it gets so painful I can barely walk, to say nothing of running.

But then I remembered what my yoga teacher said a few weeks ago: if you have stiffness in your body, a frozen shoulder, you can use your mind to let go.

I was kind of pissed at the time; I've been working on recovering from a shoulder injury since a car accident three years ago, and he was saying all I had to do was think about it relaxing? But I was also intrigued.

But during the run, I recalled what he'd said, and since I was three miles from home, it was getting colder and darker, and the only other option was to walk home across the fields, I decided to try. I put all my mental energy into relaxing the hip.

I was also channeling the physical therapist who worked on my shoulder last year. He'd say, "loose, loose" while he was drilling into a pressure point with his knuckles and causing me exquisite pain. (And when I say "exquisite," I mean "excruciating," but for some reason the medical profession likes the other term.)

And I felt both of my hip joints relax, and more motion come into them as I ran, and both my feet straightened -- I've always been pigeon-toed -- and the pain in my knee disappeared. I spent the rest of the run telling myself to stay loose. I stopped to walk a couple of times, but mostly I just kept trotting along, trying to feel like water flowing home.

I still can't really believe it. But I got home from the run and walked up a flight of stairs without pain, and I'm still pain-free today (though a little stiff). And hopeful. Incredibly hopeful.

Small Commitment

A couple of months ago I decided to start doing yoga every day.  I needed some way to address the anxieties surrounding a car accident last year, a persistent asthma episode, and a bunch of other issues having to do with family members -- not my stories.

I've kept it up, even if it's just ten minutes before I collapse into bed at the end of a long day.  (Are there any other kind?)

I started off with the goal of doing a couple of sun salutations every day, and mostly I've kept that up, and I've also found myself drawn to forward bends and pigeon pose.

Neither of these is a difficult post -- no fabulous one-armed balances requiring great strength. But they're difficult for me because I'm not very flexible. I have to accept myself in the poses as I can do them -- just be, just let go.  Let go of the ideal form of the pose, let go of tension, let go of anxiety in the various places it takes hold in my body.

Some things have improved, others haven't.  My shoulder is a little better after a cortisone shot, and I'm remembering to breathe more while driving, instead of turning myself into a string of little knots.  I haven't recovered fully from the last asthma episode, though I'm certainly a lot better.  The unbloggables haven't changed much.

But my level of anxiety is down.  Perhaps I've just gotten used to a whole new level of stress, with that curious adaptability that we humans have.  Perhaps the yoga is doing something good.

There are days I'm tempted to skip it.  But I keep at it, because if I miss one day, it is likely to turn into a string of days.  Who knows what another few weeks or months might bring?

Day Fourteen

Two weeks ago, I decided to try to return to daily yoga practice.  All I asked of myself was one sun salutation.  One night about a week ago, the asthma was so bad I couldn't manage even that, so I did a few seated and prone poses.

Just two weeks, and my back has stopped aching, my head is clearer, I'm sleeping better, my stress levels are down.  I took a fantastic yoga class with my parents over the weekend, and have now decided to add a weekly class to my own solitary practice.

If this is what two weeks can do, what about two months? Two years? Two decades? This could be quite an interesting experiment.

Starting Small

In recent weeks and months, I've come to realize that decisions I made 20 and even 30 years ago to move far from the town where I grew up are now limiting how much I can be with my parents as they get older.

A little over a year ago, I was rear-ended (in my car) by a runaway truck, and escaped (miraculously?) nearly unharmed, except for a shoulder injury.  The physical therapists told me to stop doing yoga because I needed to rest the shoulder, and over the next several months as they worked on it and gave me exercises to strengthen it I learned just how complicated a joint the shoulder is.

I still fear being hit from behind, mostly when I'm driving or riding my bike, but I also feel a fairly constant sense of vigilance about what's around me.

Between the lingering fears,and current worries about various illnesses and infirmities among people I care about, I find myself drifting in a fog of anxiety.

Three days ago, I decided that even though the shoulder still aches, it's time to return to yoga.  I made a very, very small commitment to myself: one sun-salutation sequence each day.

Once I get going, I tend to continue, whether for ten minutes or thirty.  But the fact that I made such a tiny commitment makes it easy to start, no matter how badly I want simply to fall into bed at the end of the day. I'm not going to beat myself up about how little I practice, and if I should miss a day, I'm not going to beat myself up about that, either. 

But as I resume daily practice, I'm reminded of how much I need stillness, balance, simple awareness of breath. I'm finding hope that I will be able to move through fear, through worry, through regret about decisions that can't be unmade, and find equilibrium.

If I can get anywhere, it will be by starting small.