“Yoga is a pain free practice.” This statement is a lie.
Yoga is a process of transformation and transformation is more often than not accompanied by some sort of pain. I wonder how it feels for the caterpillar to undergo metamorphosis, for the snake to shed its skin, or the grizzly bear to wake, hungry, after months of hibernation. I know how it feels to go through puberty. My bones ached as I grew, my emotions were thrown into disarray, and my general body coordination vanished. Puberty was a necessary change without which I would not have progressed further in my human experience.
If there is no transformation there is no yoga.
Yoga practice is a method of speeding up evolution. I wonder what it was like to be the first sea creature to crawl out onto the land, the first dinosaur to leap into the air and take flight, or the first yogi to realize the ultimate truth and leave the material world behind. As I evolve I will have to leave things behind. I’m sure I’ll be glad to get rid of some of those things like anger, fear, and disease. I will also have to leave behind comfort, companionship, and joy. In the ultimate state of yoga, kaivalya, there is only me. Kaivalya means alone.
Body Pain
The body is weak; it started out that way. As an infant you didn’t have the strength to lift your own head. Through a desire to experience the world around you you gained the strength to move your head, to crawl, walk, and run. This strength was not gained without mishap, without pain, without tears and tantrums. Yoga is no different. You desire to experience something beyond your normal parameters. You desire to exceed your limitations. As change occurs to your body there will be pain – discomfort in your knees, soreness in the shoulders, kinks in the back, aching wrists, and unpleasantness throughout the other parts of you. How much pain is acceptable? What kind of pain is acceptable? These are important questions that can only be answered by you and your qualified teacher.
How do you manage body pain? Eat nutritious food, get plenty of rest, and take daily abhyanga. Abhyanga, an ayurvedic remedy, is self massage with oil. Use plenty of high quality organic oil to massage your body from head to toe, employing straight strokes on the bones and circular strokes on the joints. Spend some extra time on any areas that are giving you problems. The whole process should take around 10 minutes. Rinse and towel off; there’s no need to use soap, the oil will pull out all the dirt. Abhyanga energizes the body and helps the lymph system circulate. Done regularly abhyanga will pacify the nervous system and relieve inflammation, stress, and strain.
Mental Anguish
There will always be someone better than you, someone more successful, someone luckier, someone more flexible, someone more beautiful, someone stronger. For each success you enjoy there will be failure. This is the way of the world. There’s no sense getting frustrated about it, but you probably will. Jealousy, anger, and greed don’t disappear as you step onto the yoga mat. On the contrary, stepping onto the yoga mat often throws negative thoughts right in front of your face. Some days will be insightful and filled with pleasant thoughts, but bad days of serious mental anguish are inevitable. How to combat this? I turn to japa – repetition of mantra. It doesn’t matter which mantra. If you’ve been given a mantra by a teacher that’s great, if not anything uplifting and calming will work. At the suggestion of a teacher I took to repeating a serenity prayer. Now I take great comfort in that simple prayer. Give your mind something grasp and it will invariably take hold.
Broken Hearts
I carry pain in my heart. We all do. During my yoga practice this pain surfaces from time to time. Sometimes in those predawn hours, tying my body into knots, breathing deeply to expand my ribcage to its max, I feel emotions release. Sometimes I can pinpoint the cause of my emotional upheaval, sometimes the feelings bubble up from the depths of nowhere. It can be heart rending.
I surround myself with people who understand life better than I do. My heart takes shelter with those people who have lived longer than me, seen more, and endured through good and bad times. Their wisdom is like a soothing balm. My paternal grandmother, to whom I was quite close, died when I was 10 years old. I was a musically inclined child and my family requested that I sing at the funeral – a tall order for any 10 year old. I still remember the pastor’s wife telling me that if I felt I was going to cry to look at her husband. “He will not cry,” she said, “for he knows where your grandmother has gone and knows she is safe.” People with the understanding to soothe a broken heart are rare. When you find them cherish your time together.
There is no reason to lie – to yourself, your students, your teachers. Yoga is going to be painful one way or another. You can learn from that pain, embrace it for what it is, a natural part of the evolutionary process. The journey to Ultimate Bliss can be long or short, but it will not be without its difficulties.
Liberation is a certainty. It is only a matter of time.
