Ignored Pain

Dear Friends,

I wrote this prompt a couple of years ago when I was nursing a pretty badly sprained ankle from an ill-advised, very distracted run in Rock Creek Park, but I never did anything with it until now.  That ankle took an annoyingly long time to heal…but heal it did, mostly, with attention, care and love…although at times, like this morning as I was sitting in the park admiring flowers, it still reminds me that I hurt it.

A few weeks ago some students and I were talking about movement and grief, and how our movement practice sometimes has an ability to bring up emotions that we have been holding on to…which, if we’re being honest, sometimes manifests itself as crying during a yoga or movement practice.  I’ve done my fair share of crying during a yoga and movement practice, during a walk in my neighborhood or the woods, and I know I’m not alone in that…but sometimes that manifestation of our pain leads to embarrassment, and we end up wanting to hide from it.

But here’s the thing, my friends.  Our pain stays in our bodies when we choose not to look at it and work through it.  It doesn’t go away because we’ve ignored it, because we’ve pushed it down, it stays with us…it manifests itself in different ways in our lives, but we don’t get over pain by ignoring it.

Sitting in that pain, in that discomfort…it’s not fun, it’s not a place where many of us want to sit, but I do believe it is really important to allow ourselves to sit and to look and to work through those emotions.  We may not want to, we may feel deeply uncomfortable, it might be a terrible pastime, but, my friends, it is so important.

My dear friends, I hope this week we’re able to sit in the spaces where we need to sit a little more fully, knowing that even if that space is uncomfortable right now, moving through those emotions will help us be healthier and happier people in the future.

Have an amazing week, my friends.

Love
Krista