Mental Yoga

My yoga practice hit a bump this weekend when an old (and I thought healed) injury decided to resurface. Unable to physically practice on either Saturday or Sunday I decided to press inward. I practiced the breathing exercises we had done in class and did some Savassana. Pain prevented me from doing much else. I did however have the opportunity to practice something that I had gleaned from Waking. Matthew Sanford, while in the hospital learned to mentally dissociate himself from pain and since reading that I have kind of been wanting to try that but had not the opportunity, until now.  At the apex of my discomfort, somewhere around the end of Saturday nights football game the pain I felt became to much to stand and I needed that distance Matthew found. I turned my thoughts inward, focused on my breath, rolled my shoulders back, stood up tall, and did yoga. For a short time my thoughts moved away from the pain. When I could no longer stand tall and my shoulders drooped I continued to focus my attention on my breath and the feeling of the much appreciated rain on the back of my neck. 

Before I went out and hurt myself on Friday I had the opportunity to have a great philosophical/theological conversation with a University Chaplain. We discussed at length different paths an individual can take to find God and how at the heart of each of them is some sort of inward journey. As a man with a Doctorate in all things God as well as pastoral experience I felt as if I could view the points he made as correct knowledge. He said to me that at the heart of any authentic faith the individual, in order to know God, must first know themselves. To those who view yoga as something contrary to the Christian message he pointed me towards the long standing tradition of body prayer, where individuals seem to end up in positions that look strangely like yoga. His perspectives and affirmations encouraged me to continue on the path that yoga has set me on. A bit of correct knowledge has gone a long way.