When Yoga Teachers get injured

I got recently diagnosed with a trapped nerve in my hip joint (yikes!). It is unclear how I got this! The GP guessed it was a sudden movement either sitting down or standing, it could have been my running or my Yoga, the dancing, sitting, etc.… whatever it was, it set me back and took me by surprise. I went from being very active to having to rest and nurse the pain. This was a temporary situation and the speed of the recovery was down to me, so I could either get frustrated by this, or dedicate my energy to make it better as soon as it was possible.
Injuries are part of life, it does not matter if we are a less adventurous sofa lover, or mad hyperactive gal, there will be times when we are going to hurt a part of our body. Now the important thing here is how we deal with it, and what we learn from it. this blog entry shares how I approached this:

1. I Accepted the injury. For a few days, I pretended I was ok, I kept thinking that it would go away. I kept running and kept my schedule as it was, the result was that the pain clearly got worse. Now this seems so obvious when you read it, but the sooner you accept something is wrong, the quicker you get to sort it.  Sometimes we get caught in the self-imposed automatic lifestyle of this modern world… keep going. “Motivational” slogans can be dangerous, here is a sample of some of the stuff going around in social media: “No pain no gain” (really? In Yoga Painmeans something is wrong, pain means you need to get out of the pose NOW!), here is another slogan: “Suffer the pain of discipline, or suffer the pain of regret”, and this last one is just one to pay attention to: “Pain is just weakness leaving your body”… (really?!).Sometimes it is needed to de-program our brain from Pain = gain to Pain = something is wrong, Pain is the way your body communicates that something is not going well, listen to it.
2. I became aware of my body. I stopped strong physical poses, but I did not stop doing Yoga, mostly because I wanted to keep the awareness of how I felt; I modified my personal practice to incorporate restorative/meditative poses, where I can really tune into my body, the discovery was interesting, I found the other side of my hip got much more tense, it was compensating for the pain of the opposite side, and this is how we perpetuate injuries, by the automatic unconscious way our body deals with issues, and if we lose touch with how our body is responding, we deepen the imbalances and we just end up potentially worse.
3. I modified my routine. I informed work so I could adapt my desk, I attended Physio, stopped running but kept the stretching routine. I did a lot more breathing exercises. Not surprisingly, I improved considerably in just 2 weeks. If in trouble, face it head on! Do something about it.
4. I was honest with my classes. I told my students I was injured and I would not be holding certain poses. Better to be honest than to limp around making them wonder what on earth is going on
5. I Kept a positive attitude. Injuries happen!, how we react after them is what matters.

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 So, 2-3 weeks  later, I feel much better, I also learnt a lot.

As Yogis, we can sometimes do a lot more asana and leave other meditative Yoga practices less attended. It is ok as long as we are aware of this. I felt much more calmer after I practiced  meditation and Pranayama more. We can always get something positive out of being sofa bound.
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Thanks for reading!
Namaste
Lourdes