yoga

Lou, this is for you, since you wished to know more about yoga. This week yoga helped me bear up under the strain. I have managed somehow to get all out of whack. I walk around like Quasimodo, apparently, though I am not aware of it, with one side of me noticably lower than the other. The doctor has not seen it, though I have gone to her crying and in pain. After standing in class for 2 hours, I hurt terribly all night. The chiropractor helped me with her seemingly dubious treatments. I am not asking any questions at this point. But it's yoga that has helped me most.
When I go to Bob's class, he looks at me and pokes a finger at my hip or my shoulder, which has hiked up to glory, causing pain to radiate down the side of my face, to my left hip, and all the way to my feet, which get bizarre cramps that make my toes spasm. It's particularly awful when I'm driving in heavy traffic or in the middle of a class. Sometimes in my class, I've been known to take my shoes off and teach barefoot. But Bob knows what to do, since he is the veteran of several back surgeries. He makes me do standing poses that get me exactly where it hurts and make me wonder if I'll make it through the class or even the next few minutes. But I always do. I leave class relieved, calmer, and blessedly pain free for a little while. It's amazing, like today. We did 3 sets of particularly painful standing poses. We faced the wall, both feet wide apart and turned toward it. The arms were bent and forearms were pressed against the wall. This was terribly painful for me, since I guess all the stress was sitting right in my shoulders and upper back. But after the third of these, the most painful of all, the pain mysteriously melted away... the pain in my hip, knee, and jaw were gone. The final set, in the middle of the room, was blissfully simple and pain-free.
I know I am not cured. My anxiety is not gone; it will be back, the next time I have several things to accomplish in one day and fear I'll let someone down. But I am grateful that I can always go back to class with Bob, Denise, or David and have them understand exactly what I must do to get some relief. I guess it shows that a little bit of pain can save a person a lot of pain, and this is a lesson that is useful to have.