Sinking In

I've been doing a lot of body self awareness lately. My motivation is in hope of alleviating the persistent lower back pain that resurfaced over the holidays and I've found it so much more rewarding. It's been eye opening to see how tight my quads, hamstrings, hip flexors and psoas are and how stretching them help tremendously.

One thing we noticed today (as I worked with Yoga Medicine extraordinary Allie Geer), is that my body is so used to quickly doing movements that I don't really let it sink in and let gravity do its magic. I'm so used to quickly getting on the bike, quickly moving into a pose, moving to get from point A to point B. In a way, that's my protective mechanism. A survival instinct. Do it quickly and efficiently and figure out how to fix things later. 

Which worked great for a long time. Until it didn't. 

So I started asking questions... Why would you willingly put myself in pain? What if sitting and feeling into those sensations was a way to move through them? What if you stop labeling something as hurtful or ouchie and just got curious about the tightness in one side verses the other?

What if you just let it sink in?

Ah... I think we stumbled upon something. I could see the lightbulb go off in Allie's eyes as she recognized that I understood exactly what she meant. 

So now instead of going through the universe without stopping to really feel into things, I'm going to slow it down, really let it sink in.

S

L

O

W

D

O

W

N.

Yes, please. Try it on for yourself and see what happens.