And remember, if you have a story about yoga and healing, please email me to contribute it to this series! lagitane at mac dot com
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"Hello World!" was the first thing I programmed when I enrolled in my first
computer science class in college that would later steer me to yoga. As with so
many people, I became a professional desk jock hovering over a computer 8-10
hours a day. The high paying title of Software Engineer also came with high
medical bills as I began to develop symptoms of carpel tunnel syndrome and
suffered with repetitive muscle/strain injury in my right wrist for what felt
like a very long time for 8 months of 2000. The shooting pain that radiated
from my neck straight down to my right arm and down my right leg would keep me
up all night and transformed me into someone with crankiness, unmotivated, and
self-doubt syndrome. You might as well throw in depressed too since everything
I did from simple tasks like pouring a pitcher of water aggravated the
situation. The solution my company gave me was to give me an ergonomic mouse,
chair, wrist guards and told me to sit up straight. The situation got worse as
the tingling became non-stop. I decided to go see a doctor and get x-rays.
Good news was they didn't see anything wrong physically in my wrists so carpel
tunnel was not physically evident yet. You're fine they say and couldn't
explain why I was in pain. After I refused to agree that I was imagining my
pain, they prescribed some physical therapy for me that involved massaging my
forearms, ultrasound therapy, parafin wax and some wrist twirling exercises.
These therapies relieved the pain for several hours but the pain would come
right back regardless of what I was doing. After 4 months of therapy, they
basically gave up on me and said I was doing better and that I didn't need
anymore therapy and told me to keep up my exercises. So I did. And so the
pain continued. Found myself a new doctor and he told me the same thing. I was
so sick of hearing these doctors tell me I was fine, when I wasn't feeling
fine. I decided to seek out alternative healing methods and saw an
acupuncturist who treated my entire right side instead of just my wrist and
forearms. The acupuncture was a slower method of healing, but after many
sessions, I began to feel the effects.
One day, my coworker invited me to a yoga class they had just started at
noontime at work. I went. It was the utmost unpleasant and pleasant
experience all together. My first down dog was hell! Who would want to stick
their behinds up in the air and put so much strain on the wrist? I stayed and
suffered for the hour. At the end, I left hating and loving yoga all at the
same time. At that time, I couldn't remember when the last time I truly relaxed
and slept like I did in savasana. I decided to come back and thought the
suffering in down dog was well worth the "high" I felt after class.
After doing yoga for several months, I was rewarded with days of no repetitive
muscle strain. I became aware of when the symptoms were going to flare and
would do yoga to counteract it and eventually I was able to heal myself
completely.
This is when my yoga practice would become a distant memory until I became
pregnant with my first child. The aches and pains of pregnancy sent me back to
yoga. The breathing techniques I learned in yoga helped me during child birth
when I decided that "hee haw hee haw hee haw" was a breath that should be used
when I play farm animals with my new baby. Yoga was there for me during
postpartum and I gained my strength and body back within a month. Yoga was
there for me during my 2nd pregnancy and I barely remembered the 2 hour labor
that flashed by.
I eventually left my career as a high techy and am now teaching yoga. I still
get the pains every now and then for no apparent reason that would drive me
insane. It was not until I completed my level 2 teacher training that
challenged me to look at myself on a more deeper and wholesome level. I went
through my life with a fine tooth comb and questioned everything I did. I
thought I was prescribing to what I thought was "healthy." I exercised,
meditated, and ate what I thought was healthy. It was not until I met a
nutritionist who intriqued me with his unconventional way of thinking. He
introduced me to metabolic typing nutrition where I should only eat what my body
needs chemically (i.e. how my body metabolizes). So after ten years of enduring
and trying to combat my muscle pains, I healed myself completely and found the
exact cause of my pains within two weeks of being on a metabolic nutrition
plan. I discovered that certain foods were causing muscle inflammation at the
site of an old injury.
Yoga has taken me on a journey of self discovery on all possible levels of
humaness in the physical, mental, and spiritual realms. At each stage of my
experience, I learned how to tap into the power of my intuition and sharpen my
eye of awareness. Yoga has taught me how to look at my myself as a whole and
not just the nagging pain I often associated myself with. I've learned how to
converse with the sensations in my body and listen to what they are telling
me...granted all this is a work in progress and will continue to be as the
present moment is always recreated. I love yoga and now when I wake up each
morning, the first thing I think is "Hello World!" with much gratitude and
enthusiasm. I could go on and on about what yoga has done to transform me but it
wouldn't mean a thing if you didn't experience it for yourself.
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Readers, have you experienced yoga or physiotherapy on an injury? What were the results? Have you ever been in a situation where you tried alternative and modern medicine? How did they compare?
As always I would love to hear your voices in the comments! :) Namaste.
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