Lower back pain - A revisit

I received a nice comment from an anonymous reader on an earlier lower back pain post - his lower back melted away I guess!!! Well little did he or she know that my lower back pain re-appeared on my left side. There was heavy lifting of 60 pound munchkins and that did the trick to my lower back. Old injuries have an interesting way of re-appearing when you think yoga took care of it. Coincidentally my knee pains disappeared. Its like a see-saw. Knee pains goes Back pain comes and vice-versa.

Monday night advanced yoga was hard, I failed miserably on the arm balancing poses, the poses I love the most have become my nemesis and my back hurt horrendously. Its been a horrendous three days till this evening. But I have chosen not to be miserable and didn't give permission to my backache to make me miserable nor the person who threatened to make my life miserable in utter mindless behavior. I rejected the pain both in my back and landed in my Wednesday night class with Nuvana at the gym. There is back ache, but there is resolve to get through the class.

I cannot bend to properly complete Uttanasana, so I bend as far as I can. The poses are challenging, but I choose not make them my nemesis, especially revolved triangle pose. Nuvana is great in moving the class along, there are many new yogis, all jazzed by her precision. The class has ballooned from about 10 to 25. I manage a good Vriksasana on my left foot, but not the right. It was an hour class - there were several variations of the triangle poses from Adhomukasvanasana. We ended with a small resting pose. I had kept my backache at bay, but it would appear in sharp intervals. So I checked in with Nuvana at the end of the class.

"Get into Adhomukhavirasana" she remarked! "Now!" Yeah right now she said. So off I went in the middle of the class dismissing itself. She walked over and stretched my spine. It felt good. Then she asked me to grab her ankles and while holding my lower back down she pulled her legs back. It It resulted in an intense stretch of the spine and the back. She asked me to get up and asked if it helped. "Of course it did!" I let out... The backache just melted away...it was a 30 second yoga therapy session with long lasting effects.

I learnt another lesson - by not giving permission to the pain and misery I have permission to myself to be relieved from the pain. Fear of pain is the cause of misery in life - I freed myself from it today.

Namaste

The Yogi