I have written before about my journey with my health and I have touched on pieces of the whole picture here and there. I do believe in a holistic way of living and being and this one pose alone showed me a whole lot about that. I guess we are to learn first what we may teach later. As I have been on my journey of health and wellness, I have discovered that there is a WHOLE picture and sometimes we are only focused on one piece. The issue with this is that it can create frustration when this one piece won't budge. With the understanding that "everything affects everything", you can participate in creating a healthy lifestyle in all areas and let them all come together in their due time.
Now, back to the pose. I went to my very first yoga classes when I lived in Colorado, in 2000. That was my beginning. I remember vividly what felt like some sort of twisted way of being with my body and my teacher saying, 'now just reach back and grab...."whatever. I couldn't move. The words she spoke, I heard, but they hadn't yet found their way from my brain, through the twists and turns my body was not used to being in. The mind/body connection was just beginning.
Once I moved to Little Rock I began going to a local studio with truly amazing teachers. I feel grateful that I had the teaching/training that I had in my beginning. I was starting to do things I had only read about and seen pictures of. I also found this interesting connection between what I was learning and doing in yoga and what was happening in my life. Amazing. Well, there was this one movement that looked so easy and so ..I don't know..Strong...and I could not, for the life of me, do it. This Chaturanga thing. People who could do this just flowed through it like it was no big deal. I wanted to do this.
This particular movement utilizes your whole body but predominately arms, shoulders, and core. I got to where I could do it in proper alignment staying on my knees. Which is where you start, and stay until you create the strength for the full pose. It felt good once I knew I was in proper form, even if I was still on my knees. I had no idea it would take me so long to work into this full pose and I had no idea what all it would take for this to happen.
Rewind to when I first moved here and felt like a fish out of water. Out of place, and ultimately I was scared. My body went into a fight/flight response within a year of my being here and my digestive system shut down. What does that mean? Well, to be blunt, one day I just didn't go to the bathroom like normal. I was locked in and it wasn't going anywhere! This was the beginning of my actual physical body symptoms and my health. So, here's the correlation..this pose takes tremendous core strength and this is precisely where my body was showing symptoms. I did not know at that time what "core" really meant and what all could be affecting it. I did know, however, that when I attempted to do this pose, I would collapse in my lower back and belly.
Before things got better, and stronger, they got worse. I thought learning about nutrition and moving my body would yield me these results I was after. After several years, and a complete physical breaking down, discovering celiac disease and hypothyroidism, I was so frustrated. How could this be happening? I went through a stage where I hated to do yoga, because I hated what was happening in my body. I had even lost some strength and capabilities of things I could do for a while. Did I go through this gracefully? Probably not. I didn't know what was happening and eventually I just felt completely disillusioned by it all. It wasn't just my physical body, it was this overall sense that something about me just wasn't in alignment.
Fast forward to 2013 when I finally began to have some major breakthroughs. Yes, 2013. I guess that is more than 10 years but anyways...I went on a major self inquiry and overhaul. I began following my intuitive nudgings again, I began speaking more honestly and breaking down my people pleasing tendencies, I began setting healthy boundaries..and then...I began to, you know, poo again. Yes, my system was waking up, my symptoms were clearing, and my thyroid was stabilizing (speaking more honeslty, throat chakra) and then and only then did this chaturanga thing finally happen! wow!!!
I share this story as something to offer you if you have something in your life that just won't seem to budge. Be it a yoga pose, an olympic lift. a relationship, a career upgrade...could be anything. I had to do the work, I had to do the best I could do in the moment, while having a vision, while not giving up but also letting go.......It was a rich, rich experience, and life continues to be . You hear and see suggestions about "stepping into your power, being who you are, etc.." I feel through this journey I am getting a taste of what those statements mean.
So, when or if you find yourself stuck somewhere, or you are witness to someone else, remember, you/we/I don't always know what all is going on. Be gentle, be loving, be willing to explore and expand. Finally making it to being able to do this Chaturanga, for me, was so much more than the pose, I just didn't know that going in to it. : )
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