What Pain Has Taught Me, Part 1

This is another of those difficult to write, hard-to-find-words-for kind of posts. So I shall begin at the beginning. About two years ago, I started to experience acute pain and spasming at the connection of my thighs and buttocks, particularly on the right side. It was exacerbated by forward bends, so I presumed I had injured my hamstring by overstretching it, as is so common for yogis to do.

The pain got worse during my second trip to India, and worse still in the months that ensued. Eventually, in March 2008, I dislocated my right SI joint. The pain I had been feeling in the year prior to this event was most likely a spasming of my piriformis and other stabilisng muscles as they tried to hold this joint steady. I was bedridden for almost a month after this injury and couldn’t sit, stand, or walk with any comfort for several months afterwards. And, get this, I had to sit for hours and hours on an aeroplane in early May as I flew to Australia to begin my new life.

It is safe to say that last year, I experienced more physical pain, over a longer period of time, than at any onther time in my life thus far. By November, when I attended a prenatal teacher training course, my back pain was so bad that I had to lie down during the teaching. Sadly, I got to the point where I often had to take a painkiller in order to sleep. And it was really hard to find a position to sleep in.

Ok, so enough with the pity party, what’s the point?

The point is this: although there were a number of possible physical reasons for this injury, which are valid and certainly contributed, there were also emotional/energetic/spiritual reasons; they seem to have had the stronger effect.

I think I have always had a hyper-mobile pelvis. Ever since my teens, I have experienced periodic  ‘clicks’ in my lower back, some pain, and then I would take a big step or twist in a certain way and things would click back into place. I am pretty certain that was my SI joints moving. I also have fairly limited external rotation and abduction of my legs and this, combined with a hyper-mobile pelvis and a daily Ashtanga Primary Series practice, set me up physically for the kind of injury I experienced. Lotus pose and its cousins are really no-no’s in this kind of a body.

But. If I  look back to when the pain started, I can trace it back almost to the day to when I felt like the earth had been pulled out from under my feet: a change in the circumstances of my home life. And it got worse the longer the situation continued.

Embarrassing admission: I am (ahem) more than a little bullheaded, and totally refused to listen to the signals my body was sending me. So they got louder. And louder. The more yoga I did, in an effort to relieve the pain, the louder my body talked to me. Until I had to listen. Nona, the EveryDay Yogini,  has talked about this too.

In April, I started to have prolotherapy (God bless Dr Victor Wilk) injections to stabilise the ligaments in my pelvis. After that first injection, I had a very strong sense that my body was telling me to make a change in my emotional situation, or I would get seriously ill. Not just pain, but also illness. And this feeling deepened with every subsequent injection.

I had had four prolotherapy (really, God bless Dr Victor Wilk) injections, and my back had certainly stabilised, but I couldn’t shake the nagging feeling that unless I fixed the emotional causes of the pain, full healing could not, would not happen.

In energetic terms, my base and second chakras were severely depleted.

I have, as you know, changed my home circumstances. And I no longer have back pain. At all. None. It’s gone.  My pelvis is still more mobile than other people’s, and it may always be. But I have no pain. For the first time in more than two years.

*No*

*Pain*

And I can do the splits again. Heck, I can do Warrior One again! I have my body back, and it feels so good! Let’s hope I have learnt to listen now. I have my doubts, because I know my personality.

But that’s ok, too. A lesson learned is a lesson learned.

In part two I will talk about the physical things I did to heal my back and what I have learned as a teacher from this experience. For now, I would love to hear your stories – have you experienced something similar?