Where’s the fire?

Tags

auto-immune condition, blinkers, Fire, Hashimoto’s, inflammation, life lessons, moving mindfully, pitta, Slow down, twaaang

Melbourne winter sun...

Fire, you say?

The short answer is that it’s everywhere (inflammation, causing this auto-immune condition of mine) and nowhere (there’s really no need to rush, not even a little bit). Inner fire – too much pitta throwing everything out of whack. Mind fire – going way too fast there, lassie! External fire – stimulus, trying to be where I’m not.

The other answer is that until I learn my lesson, it seems my body won’t quit with the un-subtle hints. I’m trying to develop a sense of humour around the perversity of it all, but it’s tricky sometimes.

*Twaaang*

Monday night, trying to get to the only health food store that stocks my sanity in the form of the anxiety-killing amino acid, L-Tyrosine… *twaaang*. Yep. That’d be the sound of my right calf muscle tearing once again.

Perhaps because I wasn’t moving mindfully. Desperate to get to the store before it shut in the next five minutes, not paying attention. I’d barely started moving faster, but it was enough. Same as before – that split second decision to change my pace and WHAMMY! Right in the calf muscle.

I spent yesterday working from home, barely able to walk or even hop.

Over the weekend just gone I’d been relishing the progress of my calf tear. Things were going well. I was doing gentle yoga, but no balancing on one leg. No running. Not even any extended walking anywhere. I’ve been good to my leg physically, but my mind hadn’t stopped racing ahead.

Wanting to get things done in a hurry. Be better. Be strong again.

Do ya feel lucky, punk?

This morning I read Sarah Wilson’s latest post on the difference between people who consider themselves “lucky” versus “unlucky”. Seems that the more focused and obsessive we get sometimes, the more likely we are to self-combust. In other words take your dang blinkers off, lady!

Be where I’m at. Look around. Don’t be so anxious to get my anxiety-assisting supplement that I’m not paying attention to how fast I’m travelling.

Slow down, and there won’t be a price to pay. Slow down, and smell the roses. Slow down, and be cool with not being the fastest filly in the pack (not that we ever were).

Sometimes I forget my body is sick

When I’m not crippled with an almost empty tank of energy, I can feel okay-ish. Other than an inability to lose weight and maybe the giant dark circles under my eyes, the casual observer wouldn’t necessarily pick it up either. Unless they’re sensitive to energy.

I also forget that I’m getting older and that I’ve been through a LOT spiritually, physically, mentally and emotionally (we write them separately, but they’re all really one and the same, no?).

I’m starting to put the pieces together. My body communicates back to me the things I’ve neglected or not noticed for some reason. It wants to play fetch and it never stops nudging me to throw the ball back. To keep the exchange going.

Listen to the bod!

Many years ago, my body took me on my first unbidden healing journey.

Then it painfully pointed out to me that I needed to get some help for PTSD. I was so dissociated that getting my attention required extra effort.

And now my body is showing me all the hidden inflammation I carry, caused by too much stress and adrenal exhaustion. The first hint was via my regular blood donation – seriously low iron levels? Could be so many things, but I was encouraged to see a doctor and from there, everything else unfolded.

So why does my body have to go to such lengths? Because I’m dropping the ball. Not listening closely enough and/or the connection between mind and body has been severed a little. Not completely, but enough.

Too sick to feel it

Someone once told me that for all the people out there thinking they’re in good health because there’s nothing perceptibly wrong with them, many are not. It’s just that their systems are too backed up for them to notice.

Being sensitive to your body is a good thing, you see.

I mean, imagine a blocked drainpipe in a sink. Add more crap to the stuff that’s already blocking the drain and do you think that makes a difference? Maybe the blockage isn’t noticed until there’s water over-flowing onto the floor. Oh, we say. The drain is blocked!

Yeah, it’s actually been like that for ages and we just never noticed. Until we do. If we’re lucky, that is.

Blessings and lessons

So I see now that I’m actually blessed, even when I feel like crap. Really. Because my illness was discovered early, before I could become irrevocably sick. I just need to stop thinking it should all be over NOW-NOW-NOW.

Instead, I have to pay attention to the lessons my body wants me to learn:

• Self-nurture, self-care and self-love are vital to health and happiness
• Anger, bitterness, regret etc… are all inflammatory for the body and mind
• I’m strongest when I listen to and trust my intuition
• Ploughing headlong into everything without looking around first is never wise, but it’s how I’ve lived most of my life
• I intuitively understand mind and body are not separate and I need to stop treating them that way!
• Moving too fast is what got us into this mess…

Doubtless, there are more. But I’m just gonna deal with what’s in front of me right now before I take my next (careful) step forward.

~ Svasti

Desire

Tags

churns the spinal column, Desire, Fire, insanity, preference, Shadow Yoga, Tapas, Yoga

Towards the end of the class now, and I’m exhausted. Shadow Yoga always does that. Often I feel like I want to puke. Or cry. Or fall on the ground in a heap. Or all of those things put together.

Every movement is both not enough and too much. I can’t find the way to stop the ache in my body, but I’d rather not stop. If only my legs wouldn’t shake.

We need a bolster each and I stand taller than ever, gliding over to the props. The soles of my feet are tingling, but not in that pins and needles way. More in the every-part-of-my-body-feels-vibrantly-alive-and-yet-its-my-feet-that-feel-it-the-most kinda way.

They all look the same more or less. Long and roundish. Some blue, some lavender. And yet I notice I’m searching for the one I want above all others. Which strikes me as absurd. Still, in the mass of sameness, I crave differentness. I crave my preference. I seem to have some idea of what that preference is, despite a complete lack of distinguishing features from one to the next.

And then we lie over our bolsters, feet on a block, shoulders on the ground and relax. And I couldn’t care less.

That bolster-want was superfluous, of course. Redundant, but noisy nonetheless. And if I’d allowed myself to listen, I could’ve driven myself nuts and/or missed another minute or two of relaxation. It’s a tiny bit of insanity, is it not? To care about which bolster among so many is the best one for me?

Some would say that desire for a bolster is the same as the desire for enlightenment and understanding one’s essence nature…

There’s a searingly profound honesty in this yoga. Or perhaps it’s doing this kind of yoga at this specific time in my life? Or both? Anyway, it’s hard work and not just physically.

Every movement challenges what I think I know about myself because it’s all so unusual, supremely physical and requiring me to think about my body in ways I normally don’t.

Much of what we do churns the spinal column from the base of the skull to the tail bone and in so doing, churns those other hidden repositories of emotion and fear. The fear plays out in what my mind allows my body to do or not do. The emotion spews forth in the volume of my perspiration, and how often I feel like I’m about to vomit tears onto the floorboards.

Afterwards, it takes all I have to float down the studio stairs and out into the day…

~Svasti

Anger management

Tags

Anger, Burning, Down the rabbit hole, Fangs, Fire, Gaps, Nothingness, Outpouring, Rage, Unknown

There’s a torrent and it won’t stop. A mass of bees swarming, changing shape yet keeping form. Just there beneath my skin and running hotly through my veins. It’s sharp and pointy, jagged and primal. Snarls come easily. My face, I can tell from those reacting around me, appears ferocious. Harsh and lioness-like. Yet I do not, I am not feeling that way myself. Lookout! My fangs are showing, don’t make me bare my teeth right now. I’ve no wish to scare you. My tongue sharpened with sandpaper is rough and bitey, just around the edges – don’t push – you wouldn’t like me when I’m angry. Currently I’m zero to agression in microseconds so just don’t go there friends!

Fuck, the top cracked and that was it! A catalyst opened the door and now it’s raging furiously with a life of its own, an entity of pure murderous anger spewing forth if I open my mouth or stop attempting to smile. I’m puzzled…

Falling between the gaps… I’ve no idea what that means, only what it feels like. Where to? Down the rabbit hole… Why is it, in this place there’s no frame of reference, no easy-to-grasp gnosis? Shimmering and losing sense of the physical representation of outer form. It’s gone. Well, I still see it but I also not see it. I see its not there, I understand the wrapper was never more than just a trick of the eye and the mind. Like a mirage but somewhat more tangible. I see there’s nothing there really…

What is it about this recent experience of loss of differentness that’s given flight to such a vicious outpouring? I’m not personally angry; it’s a beast in need of restraint lest it injures those in range. Is this the end of anger’s repression? The burning of more samsaric seeds? Wherefore does this energy field, so separate and vibrant mean to go? How does it resolve back to Source?

This is not the anger of my personality display. It lingers. It consumes, feeding on available fuel. It subsumes… My anger is faster, more mobile, less volatile. More like a lightning strike – brilliant, dangerous, swift and then its gone. Almost like it never was and I forget in minutes its brief existence. There’s no grudge holding, no ill intent, no malice to my anger.

It’s been days now, two full days of this bristling simmering growling ever-present fiery malcontent attitude of a smoking seething bubbling hurricane sweeping through my body and blazing forth from eyes, lips and fingertips.

‘Course its mine – I lay claim to ownership because it can’t belong to another. But from where does this rage originate? And when’s it leaving please?

~Svasti