A couple of years ago, Advil ran a series of commercials showing people engaging in sports activities. These people were taking the pain reliev’er so that they could push their bodies further because they had been horrified to realize they’d been letting their body tell them what it could do”.
I use this example in my yoga classes as exactly what we should NOT be doing on the mat – and in other parts of our lives as well. In yoga, the best way to stay safe is to listen to the body and never do anything it tells you not to. Even if the teacher is suggesting you try it. No yoga teacher – or other person on the planet – knows what you are feeling. Everybody’s body is structured slightly differently, and pain is a signal that you’re pushing past the point where your body can safely do what you’re asking of it.
Of course, it’s important to learn how to distinguish between pain and intense sensation. One clue is where you’re feeling it. If it’s in a joint, like the knee or the wrist, it’s likely to be pain. If it’s in the body of the muscle, it may just be an intense stretch. And intensity can be good – but only to a point. If you push your muscles too far, they’ll push back – and here again, that’s where you can get hurt.
After almost 9 years of teaching, I have told these things to hundreds of students. I believe them with not only my heart but my head, and I’ve experienced both pain and intensity. I can tell the difference – for me – and am pretty good about backing off in yoga practice when my body tells me to.
Then my body decided to throw me a curve ball and tell me to back away from something other than a yoga pose. My body started telling me that it needed 10-12 hours of sleep not just once in awhile but nearly every single day. Some days, it wants even more. Doctors have confirmed that yes, I need to listen to my body if I want it to heal. Not just in the sleep department, either. There are some medications I’m on, and regular appointments, and others sorts of things one goes through when one has an illness that needs tending.
This has created something of a dilemma. After telling hundreds of people how important it is to listen to their bodies, how could I not listen to mine? Oh, and I might mention that my body was, shall we say, EXTREMELY firm with me on the point (firm enough to send me off to see specialists I the first place).
Yet, listening to my body requires me to do some things that really redefine my life. Like change my job. Not the yoga teaching one – the day job. The job where I have a title on a shiny business card I’m used to handing to people. The one I use to answer when I’m asked at parties what I do for a living. While I have a version of the same job, my body has told me – at least for now – that I need to think of myself and my life in different terms.
And let me tell you – I am not entirely a fan of this approach. Oh sure, the details sound great. Sleep a lot. Work a lot less. Spend lots of time on the yoga mat, because exercise is a part of the recommended therapy. OK, so the details ARE great.
The problem comes in the reality that I’m used to defining myself at some level based on the thing that earns me money. And all of a sudden, I don’t know how much money I’m going to be earning any more. I don’t know where all of it will be coming from. I don’t have the same title – or my accustomed place in a company. And, quite frankly, that’s a little scary.
I’ve seen these sorts of things turn out really well for people, of course. Both on and off the mat – when I have watched other people listen to their bodies – often their guts, I’ve seem amazing things happen in their lives. It always looks so easy – so…guided. From a distance. In retrospect.
Perhaps in the middle of it things feel a little scary. And in the future, when I look back from some distance, it will look like I knew what I was doing all along. In the mean time, I’ll keep poking at the Advil commercial and reminding my students (and myself) that listening to the body isn’t the enemy, it is the goal.
