In my studies for the past 2 years, my thought process for how I view my body, how to use it, feel good in it, move it, exercise it, and just about anything else I can do with it has been turned on its head. The first example I can give you when it comes to this, is an issue I have been having on the left side of my body. It generally manifests in me feeling aches in the left hip area, but also lower left back, and left leg. I would say a little over 5 years ago after noticing it getting worse, I starting reaching out and studying more to understand what was going on. I went to massage therapists, other yoga teachers, rolfers, etc and I did get some relief in the process, but the underlying issue was still there. I felt like it was something that would never go away and that I was trying to figure out how to manage it. Finally about 2 years into that whole process, I called a friend who is a physical therapist and he told me to come see him. He did the whole intake process with me and said he could see that my left side was having problems and in fact when he watched me walking that my left leg was not as strong. He gave me several moves and exercises to do. I started doing them religiously because even after the first visit to him, things started feeling better. I kept doing them and would notice if I started slacking with the exercises that the achiness would come back. Now back to the part where my studies have turned my thought process on its head, after studying at The Breathing Project with Amy Matthews, I have started to view whatever is going on with the left side of my body as some kind of habitual, on-going( probably for years and years) kind of misalignment that I have been doing. I will also say this is not the first time I have thought this in different ways. I have started thinking about more than my muscles and thinking about my bones and joints.
Each week in class, Amy has us do these deceptively “simple” movements and I will call them body explorations of a different body part or area. I show up for class each week and assume whatever position Amy tells me to, close my eyes and go as deep as I can inside my body and try to feel, just feel and listen. Trying to feel and listen to what’s going on inside my body is hard and I don’t want to over simplify that. As I listen to her tell us what to do or move, I try my best and to be with it. I will tell you that sometimes I feel lots and other times I am a bit lost. I keep trying and do the best I can, sometimes having some insight into myself. Over the past few months I have been gaining more and more insight to the point of seemingly starting to have a glimpse of what some of my misalignments might be.
I say seemingly for now, because who knows what will happen next week, but for now I will say my left side feels good and I feel like I am gaining some insight. I am not suggesting that I “cured” or “fixed” myself, I am suggesting that I am starting to shed some light upon some of my patterns and my patterns alone. I still do some of the exercises and fingers crossed I will continue to feel good. I still feel some twinges of things from my left side, but as I said seemingly better.
I will write more about this as I now believe that no matter how much exercise, relaxing, massage or whatever until I have gotten to the underlying issues of what I was doing to cause the stuff on my left side it will always be there. Lets see and fingers crossed!!!
Yoga with Suzi in NYC