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[the-chronically-in-pain-yogi]

RESOURCE for any folks in pain/experiencing intense emotions: Tara Brach's RAIN (Regocnize, Allow, Investigate, Nurture) meditations are effective in sitting with intense sensations that may arise within your body -- physical pains, emotional pains, mental pains, soul pains. Tara Brach is a fabulous resource for anyone who is searching for free guided meditations or spiritual teachings in the form of casual discussions, book, or podcast. A quick google search of "Tara Brach" should render significant information. I have come to her teachings to heal from physical/medical and emotional traumas, and I truly hope others out there find peace through her teachings.

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For people who live with/in chronic and overwhelming pain, it's imperative that we learn to sit with this pain; to recognize it, to allow it though it is scary (sometimes horrifying) and hard and may take so much from us on any given day, to investigate all of our feelings about it, and finally, to nurture those feelings and ourselves while we deal with it. Including this RAIN process in my daily yoga/meditation practice helps me and my body not turn into a haunted house and has been a great tool as I have cultivated a relationship with my differently abled, painful body.

((Teacher's note: this practice has historically worked best in a meditation setting. This meditation setting must be comfortable so that the practioner can go inward with confidence and peace, as this is sometimes a complex and difficult process. This note is not to discourage but to set you up with more knowledge of the process to enable success. If the still position you are sitting in causes discomfort or pain, it may be best to adjust and find a position that alleviates these sensations. For example, if legs crossed in a seated position on the floor is uncomfortable, try laying down in savasana pose or seat yourself on a chair with a sturdy back and plant your feet on the floor.))

Metaphorically speaking, the only way to "heal it" is to "feel it". I mean this, too, for the things that don't heal all the way or will never be "fixed"; this doesn't mean there isn't still internal "healing" to be done or peace to be made. And to make peace, we have to first sit in a bunch of scary and uncomfortable truths and sensations, and commune with our shadow selves. (Please note: this work is hard.)

The truth of the matter is that my body will never not be in chronic pain; I will never move the same way I did before. I will never be able to get into some poses and experience flows that I found so much joy and power in my teens and 20s; they are gone as they were and they are gone early from my life, as some things are unfortunately. I miss them, and I have mourned them and the losses of motion within my body. This is life. And as Tom Petty sings, "Some days are diamonds and some days are rocks". Some days, I must conjure the RAIN method in order to sit with my grief and my body that feels as though it's a gnarled-up, old, angry tree. Other days, I feel springy, joyful, and light, and RAIN can still be utilized to cultivate a relationship with my more positive emotions.

The song attached is one of my favorites to bring to my yoga practice or mindfulness exercise when things get scary, hard, tough, difficult, overwhelming, etc. etc.

"Keep me an open heart in hell

Give me the courage to feel it all

The beauty of the fall

When I want to run away

When I wish to run away

Oh, lord, help me stay."

RAIN

with Tara Brach

[the-chronically-in-pain-yogi]

As a lifelong yogi and aspiring yoga teacher, this is some of my biggest work, over and over and over again with this beautifully catastrophic life.

Are you stressed? Are you so busy getting to the future that the present is reduced to a means of getting there? Stress is caused by being “here” but wanting to be “there,” or being in the present but wanting to be in the future. It’s a split that tears you apart inside. To create and live with such an inner split is insane. The fact that everyone else is doing it doesn’t make it any less insane. If you have to, you can move fast, work fast, or even run, without projecting yourself into the future and without resisting the present. As you move, work, run — do it totally. Enjoy the flow of energy, the high energy of that moment. Now you are no longer stressed, no longer splitting yourself in two. Just moving, running, working — and enjoying it. Or you can drop the whole thing and sit on a park bench. But when you do, watch your mind. It may say: “You should be working. You are wasting time.” Observe the mind. Smile at it.

Eckhart Tolle

[the-chronically-in-pain-yogi]

[the-chronically-in-pain-yogi]

In case anyone needed a new song to add to their yoga playlists.

[the-chronically-in-pain-yogi]

Reminder: no mud, no lotus.

[the-chronically-in-pain-yogi]

If you are experiencing joint pain or low body pain while sitting in a standard seated meditation pose (aka criss-cross applesauce), you are totally allowed to place a bolster under the knees to support your joints so that you are not sitting in pain. I have found this pose to be more opening and available when I work in tandem with my pain rather than against it.

Even when I had a more abled body, sitting in a legs crossed position on the floor hurt my low back, my ankles, my knees, and my hips. Sometimes during longer meditations, my feet would go numb -- a sensation I did not want to keep continuing to experience while I was trying to get deep within myself. Yes, all sensations of the body are sensations that should be listened to and respected and nurtured, especially during moments of mindfulness/meditation; however, that doesn't mean we should sit in a painful position if there's something that can possibly be done to alleviate said pain.

One of my biggest personal struggles in life and my yoga practice is sitting in pain and staying in the muck of that pain interally because it's all I see and feel around me. Small changes like this in a yoga practice can go a long way to creating more space for quiet moments, for joy, for stretching and strengthening the body, for your internal and external practice, and for your breathwork.

[the-chronically-in-pain-yogi]

A typical setup for a vinyasa flow. Props mandatory; cat optional and always welcome.

Did you know that Lululemon makes knee pads for yogis with painful lowbody joints? Yep. They do. While I do not support Lululemon as a company, nor do I appreciate the vast majority of their company values, I am grateful for their knee pads. One of my yoga teachers gave me these while i was in her teacher training and lost the ability to walk or stand without dibilitating pain. These yoga knee pads have opened many doors for me within my accessible yoga flow for pain management, as most of my power poses are now founded in my knees and not my ankles.

For anyone on the lookout for new props and accessibility tools in the yoga community, these knee pads are significantly superior to blankets and pillows under the knees (unless we are doing yin -- that's a horse of a different color).

**Notes: these knee pads are not a full remedy to pain. I will sometimes still have unpleasant sensations in my body during my flows while utilizing these; however, they are a wonderful tool for those looking to work on lowbody joint pain in their yoga. They are a piece of the puzzle for my body to be able to perform more vinyasa-style flows. I do not utilize these for yin poses.

[the-chronically-in-pain-yogi]

"To get to freedom, you have to bear the pain...Most people want to take joy without suffering. I will take both. See how far suffering takes me. When you do not resist suffering, you will make friends with other people who suffer. I suffer a lot in my own body. Now, when someone tells me of their suffering, I feel in my body what that suffering is. My personal experience provides me with great love and compassion. So I say, 'my friend, let me try and do something.'

Pain comes to guide you. When you have known pain, you will be compassionate. Shared joys cannot teach us this." B.K.S. Iyengar, Light on Life: The Yoga Journey to Wholeness, Inner Peace, and Ultimate Freedom

"What's sweet without the sour?" Jason Lee playing as Brian Shelby, Vanilla Sky

[the-chronically-in-pain-yogi]

B.K.S. Iyengar writes in his book Light on Life: The Yoga Journey to Wholeness, Inner Peace, and Ultimate Freedom -

"Very few people begin yoga because they believe it will be a way to achieve spiritual enlightenment, and indeed a good number may be quiet skeptical about the whole idea of self-realization. Actually, this is not a bad thing because it means most of the people who come to Yoga are practical people who have practical problems and aims -- people who are grounded in the ways and means of life, people who are sensible.

When I set off in yoga, I also had no understanding of the greater glory of yoga. I too was seeking its physical benefits, and it was these that truly saved my life. When I say that yoga saved my life, I am not exaggerating. It was yoga that gave me a new birth with health from illness and firmness from infirmity."

My goal as a lifelong yogi with chronic pain + disabilities is to promote awareness of the benefits of cultivating a yoga practice to help manage chronic pain and suffering of the mind, body, and soul.

For those who may not know, there are many, many different forms of yoga. The internet/the West's version of 'slim woman doing highly athletic and complex pose in an expensive yoga outfit' is not original yoga in its intended form, but rather, an influx of influence by western gymnastics and the capitalistic wellness industry's greed and influence. This is not yoga.

"The truth is that although the body is born, lives, and dies, you cannot catch a glimspe of the divine except through the body." - B.K.S. Iyengar

Yoga and its eight limbs (with only one of those being the physical practice, asana) can and do support mind, body, and soul connection; can help mitigate and manage pain within the mind, body, and soul; and straight-up helps me be better for myself and others. This is not some wellness industry diet culture guru bs I'm putting out here -- countless studies have shown this, and countless people echo this sentiment, including me.

I have been practicing yoga for almost 20 years, throughout many physical changes and problems. I started yoga as an anorexic 14-year-old to try and achieve the perfect body -- but my yoga and the universe, thankfully, had different plans for me. During my healing journey in my late 20s, my orthopedic surgeon/doctor, physical therapists, eating disorder recovery therapist, and clinical dietician have all been ecstatic to utilize my dilligent yoga practice to aid in the many ways I needed to heal; their sources and fields all believe in the benefits of yoga, especially within a disabled and chronically in pain body. I truly hope others find this benefit in their lives and bodies as well.

[the-chronically-in-pain-yogi]

There are eight limbs of yoga, and only one is the physical practice.

So i know “have you tried yoga” is a meme and whatnot but spirituality really does improve mind body connection which is vital for wellness regardless of any health condition . Idk if we’re ready to have this conversation but yoga is an immensely beneficial thing to have in one’s life if one does it properly and with the appropriate reverence and understanding for what it actually is, a spiritual practice. Ruthlessly And Constantly Mocking even the well-meaning SUGGESTION of yoga is honestly at Least a tiny bit offensive to the thousands of disabled yogis in this world who are simply participating in a health tradition that both precedes western medicine by thousands of years AND ALSO has been proven by literally so much clinical study to be effective in the management of emotional and physical wellness for people of extremely diverse abilities.

TL;DR yoga is good for you and so much more than you probably think it is because you’re entirely ignorant of the concept aside from your random memory of the California-branded exercise class you were forced to take in PE like two years ago.

This is not said with any vitriol whatsoever nor is it a suggestion to try yoga, it’s literally just a post about respecting diverse cultures and experiences, particularly those outside of the white, secular, Xtian Anglo-sphere... its not Karen behavior to be like “hey people have done This for thousands of years and it worked alright for them”. It might not work for you but it Does Work Sometimes so the severe flack is really unwarranted imo. Idk. Just thinking aloud

[the-chronically-in-pain-yogi]

Sometimes, completing your mudra looks like this / / Severe arthritis + ankle bone fusion calls for orthopedic shoes for support during my yoga. My shoes are an extension of my body + belong on my mat and journey / / yoga mat knee pads shown / / blocks and bolsters most always necessary and welcome