Water vs. Rock

"People don't resist change. They resist being changed!"

— Peter Senge

This is really so true if you think about it. If the change in our life is our idea we are very happy with it aren't we? But what if the change is an obstacle we didn't choose and that is steering us away from the life we were planning. In some ways we can choose the direction of our life but sometimes we can't. Sometimes to get to that life we dreamed or try to get there we have to stop resisting. We have to move with change and not against it. Accepting things as they are. If you think of it like water. Water is one of the strongest things on earth if not the strongest. But its strength lies in its flexibility and persistence. And really that is how life is. We may not always get what we want right away. We may have to work for it. But if we stand firm and resist we may never be able to penetrate the obstacle we face but yet if we are flexible and move with it we may just be able to sneak through the cracks. Look at a boxer for instance, if the boxer stands firm he will get hit and risk defeat. But if he moves with the punches, flowing in between them he can get out of the way and in the end suffer less and stand longer through the fight. This task is not easy but with practice we will find less resistance and with that greater strength to endure what we must and cherish what we can. 

"Pain is a relatively objective, physical phenomenon; suffering is our psychological resistance to what happens. Events may create physical pain, but they do not in themselves create suffering. Resistance creates suffering. Stress happens when your mind resists what is... The only problem in your life is your mind's resistance to life as it unfolds."

-  Dan Millman

Learning the hard way

"The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows. It’s a very mean and nasty place and I don’t care how tough you are it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain’t about how hard ya hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward."

- Rocky Balboa

Many times in life we have to learn the hard way. When you were a kid and your mom told you not to touch the hot stove cause it would hurt did you believe her or did you have to try to out for yourself to see if it was true. Seems like unnecessary pain doesn't it? But if you never tried it out you may always have this curiosity about it. Do you ever have a gut feeling about something but you ignore it and find out it was right? How often does that gut feeling lie? But ultimately in life there is no manual. It's a series of trials and errors. Love and heartbreak. Pain and happiness. 

This week I learned a pretty big lesson. I didn't listen to my body once again. I thought I could push through. I thought I was strong enough to keep going. But really it turns out strength would of been letting go. It's funny how we feel giving up for the moment and saying no, shows we are weak, when really giving up and letting go portrays true strength. 

One week post injections - Prolotherapy series 1

"Determine that the thing can and shall be done, and then we shall find the way." 

- Abraham Lincoln 

So I was told by my doctor that I could try to go for a walk a week after my injections in my back. Here we are one week later and I walk 1.2 miles. I even ventured out into the woods for the beginning of the walk which isn't surprising that I would start off the hardest way. Hills and uneven terrain had me thinking to myself here you go again getting too overzealous. But it was sure beautiful letting go of the fact that I was also turning into an ice cube. It was so worth it anyway.

But I walked very careful and slow and it all turned out ok. Of course I am a bit sore but no shooting pains which I consider a good sign. Slow but steady wins the race they say.

Today I started working on some laundry and doing a little more around the house. Now let's be real this girl is a clean freak and is getting very tired of not being able to clean the house well. But I also know that if I do too much I won't be much. Meaning I will never recover if I don't play the game right now. So I have been wearing my SI belt. I even started using this ridiculous move I was taught by a physical therapist called the golfers lift/squat. I remember when I was taught it I took it as a challenge of course. I showed him I could do a one legged squat without holding onto anything. Needless to say this is harder then is seems and I was never very good at one legged squats in the past. Previously I thought to myself I can't be caught picking things up like this in public. Am I really going to let my ego stop me from doing what I need to do. Maybe we should all be a little more ridiculous and vulnerable at times. But ultimately this move definitely seems to save your back in certain instances. Just make sure you don't kick anybody on your way down. ;)

http://health.howstuffworks.com/diseases-conditions/pain/back/how-to-prevent-back-pain8.htm

This whole process and recovery will be trial and error but hopefully my determination and conscious effort to continue moving forward toward better health will get me where I want to be.

Strong Body

Strong Mind

Prolotherapy Series 1

"The wound is the place where the Light enters you."

-  Rumi

Last Wednesday November 27th I received my first series of injections for my prolotherapy treatments. Was definitely unsure of what to expect and I guess am still living in a world of unknown. Talk about feeling vulnerable. The unknown. It seems we always want to know what is going to happen. We want to know why, how, if and when. But the truth is this is not reality. I can say the injections definitely hurt but it's a hurt I can take. I don't think the saying no pain no gain applies to all situations but I do think it applies to some. Prolotherapy is supposed to stimulate an inflammatory response to create a natural healing process in the ligaments. It involved an injection of an irritate into the ligaments in my lower back and my si joint, iliolumbar ligaments, facets and surrounding attachments. I would say I must of had 15 or more injections all together. 

Now what happens...

Well I guess rest and at some point strengthing. It will take at least 4-6 weeks to go through the healing process and then on January 6th I get another series of injections. My treatment will include 3-6 series. So needless to say this will be a long recovery process. Am I going crazy right now trying to rest. You betcha! Why is it when you have all the time in the world nothing really sounds appealing. But sometimes you have to give a little now for what you want later. 

My New Adventures in Yoga

"You must never doubt your ability to achieve anything, become anything, overcome anything and inspire everything."

-  Tasha Hoggatt

In February I start my first yoga teacher training program with Three Trees Yoga in Federal Way. I have been doing research for years on the different programs in the area because this has been a passion of mine for a while. I decided that there is never really a right time for things so as far as I was concerned the right time is now. At a certain point in your life you realize you need to follow your heart. Your mind can only lead you so far. They are both important but without heart you will be without passion. And I believe we are lacking some passion in this world today. 

I picked up my books today. Since I get my first series of injections in my back next week I will be laid down for a bit so what better time to get started on some reading. It looks like I have plenty of it. My training program will go until November 2014. I am very excited. This will not only help me better care for others and help them change their lives like I have but it will also help me better care for myself and continue to grow in my journey. 

Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers

"If you change your thoughts,

You change your life,

And you change the world."

Imagine you are a zebra and a lion has just leapt out and ripped your stomach open. You've managed to get away and now you have to spend the next hour evading the lion as it continues to stalk you. Or perhaps imagine you are the lion, half starved, and you had better be able to sprint across the savanna at top speed and grab something to eat or you won't survive.  

As humans we can experience wildly strong emotions from mere thoughts, provoking our body into an accompanying uproar. Two people can sit facing each other doing doing nothing more physically strenuous than moving little pieces of wood now and then, yet this can be an emotionally taxing event such as the chess grand masters. During this tournament it can place metabolic demands on their bodies that begin to approach those of athletes during the peak of a competitive event. 

So if you are a zebra running for your life, or a lion sprinting for your meal, your body's physiological response mechanisms are superbly adapted for dealing with such short term physical emergencies. For the vast majority of beasts on this planet, stress is about short term crisis, after which its either over with or your over with. When we sit around wording about stressful things, we turn on the same physiological responses - but they are potentially a disaster when provoked chronically. A large body of evidence suggests that stress-related disease emerges, predominantly, out of the fact that we so often activate a physiological system that has evolved for responding to acute physical emergencies, but we turn it on for months on end, worrying about mortgages, relationships, and promotions. 

Let's think of the idea of homeostasis for a minute. Homeostasis is the ability or tendency of an organism or cell to maintain internal equilibrium by adjusting its physiological processes. Such maintaining ideal levels if oxygen, acidity, temperature and so on. And a stressor is anything in the outside world that knocks you out of homeostatic balance. A stress response is what your body does to reestablish homeostasis. 

Now of course I personally believe that our lives are completely different from a zebra in one way but of course I know that these are some great concepts and that it is completely unnecessary to worry about as many things as we do. Treating everything as an emergency. Living in a state of emergency creates stress in our lives and when you live in a state of constant stress it causes physical and mental illness and unhappiness. Now it seems almost all the stress created is within our own mind. How we perceive things. The expectations we have for ourselves and one another. Thinking that you know how things should be will leave you in an almost constant state of disappointment vs. just accepting them as they are. 

 

Most of this information came from the book: Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers written by Robert M. Sapolsky. A fantastic book about how the the body reacts to stress. 

The Mountain Just Sits

In our life we can learn a lot from a mountain. Mountains are known for their presence and stillness. Picture in your mind the most beautiful mountain you can imagine. One that speaks personally to you. Imagining its shape, size, character and qualities. Imagine you are the mountain. Your head is it's lofty peak; your shoulders and arms are the side of the mountain; your buttocks and legs the solid base rooted to floor or on your chair. Experience in your body the sense of uplift, the elevated quality of the mountain deep in your own spine. Imagine you are a breathing mountain, unwavering in your stillness, completely what you are -- beyond words and thought, a centered, rooted, unmoving presence. 

Throughout the day, the mountain just sits. The light, shadows and colors are changing virtually moment to moment in the mountains adamantine stillness. As the light changes, day by day and night by night, the mountain just sits, simply being itself. It remains still as the seasons flow, as the weather changes, moment by moment, day by day. The mountain remains in calmness abiding all change. Even when enshrouded by clouds or fog, or pelted by freezing rain. Being unable to be seen by others at times but to the mountain it's all the same. Seen or unseen, in the sun or clouds, broiling or frigid, the mountain just sits, being itself. At times visited by violent storms, snow and rain and winds of unthinkable magnitude, through it all the mountain sits. Spring comes, the birds sing in the trees once again, the leaves return to the trees which lost them, flowers bloom in the high meadows and on the slopes, streams overflow with waters of melting snow. Through it all, the mountain continues to sit, unmoved by the weather, by what happens on the surface, by the world of appearances. 

As we sit holding this image in our mind, we can embody the same unwavering stillness and rootedness in the face of everything that changes in our own lives over seconds, hours and years. In our lives we experience constantly the changing nature of the mind and body  and of the outer world. We experience periods of light and dark, vivid color and drab dullness. We experience storms of varying intensity and violence, in the outer world and in our own lives and minds. Buffeted by high winds, by cold and rain, we endure periods of darkness and pain as well as savor ing moments of joy and uplift. Even our appearance changes constantly, just like the mountains. By becoming the mountain in our own eye and mind, we can link up with its strength and stability, and adopt them for our own. We can use its energies to support our efforts to encounter each moment with mindfulness, equanimity, and clarity. The weather of our own lives is not to be ignored or denied. It is to be encountered, honored, felt, known for what it is, and held in high awareness. In holding it this way, we come to know a deeper silence and stillness and wisdom than we may have thought possible, right within the storms. Mountains have this to teach us, and more, if we can come to listen. We as human beings are far more interesting and complex than mountains. We are breathing, moving, dancing mountains. 

The birds have vanished into the sky,

And now the last cloud drains away.

We sit together, the mountain and me, 

until only the mountain remains.

I heard this meditation a while back but for some reason it resonates more with me now then ever before. In my mind I can't stop thinking "the mountain just sits". Thinking of the mountain and its unwavering through it all. No matter what happens, the mountain just sits. It just remains in the moment. Whatever the moment brings, the mountain just sits.

This meditation was written by Jon Kabat-Zinn in his book, Wherever You Go There You Are.