Honoring Your Body
One reason I always preferred yoga DVDs to going to classes is because a competitive nature is a good way to get hurt in a yoga class. It can be hard not to look around the room and compare yourself to those around you, but there is also a hesitancy to modify a movement or especially to take a break if you need one. Practice at home meant that I could focus on my body, while in a class I found myself focused on everyone else, self-conscious over the idea that someone else might have zoned in on me.
When I developed RA, this became even harder. I remember several times where I felt like my practice was regressing. Suddenly a pose I had done for years would cause pain, my range of motion was obviously decreasing, and eventually I just quit because I didn’t have the strength or energy to get through a practice. Obviously, I got back to it, but it took some time and additional selfcare. What I realized several years later was that it was my body regressing, not my practice.
There is a lot of frustration with your body when you feel like it has turned on you. But if you are not honoring your body in your self-care, you will always be fighting it. For me, this meant that I could not keep trying to put my body through the same yoga practices that I loved in the past.
Even after toning down the intensity and duration of my practices, it was still too much some days. I could accept that my body needed a different practice. What I struggled with the most were the stretches of time that I still could not practice at all. Laying in bed with nothing to think about but my pain was not doing anything for me, so at the very least my brain needed something else to do regardless of my body. This is where I rounded out my yoga practice with meditation and pranayama. (The more I continue these practices, the more I wish I had started them sooner.)
Everyone has those rough days where your body just is not there for you. Maybe that is a day that you just breathe and visualize your practice. Those seemingly little things on your down days can make a big difference in how you practice on your mat, especially your focus and your breathing. Your body may cause you to change how you practice on any given day, but it does not have to stop you completely. You can do this, in your own time, at your own pace.
Be mindful and carry on.
