Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Guest Post: A Healing Story

This week's guest post is by Nikki, who blogs over at Live, Love, Yoga.  Check out her blog after reading here about the origins of a strong, creative and super-inspirational yogini and yoga teacher.  Thanks for sharing Nikki.


And remember, if you have a story about yoga and healing, please email me to contribute it to this series! lagitane at mac dot com


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"Hello World!" was the first thing I programmed when I enrolled in my first 


computer science class in college that would later steer me to yoga.  As with so 
many people, I became a professional desk jock hovering over a computer 8-10 
hours a day. The high paying title of Software Engineer also came with high 
medical bills as I began to develop symptoms of carpel tunnel syndrome and 
suffered with repetitive muscle/strain injury in my right wrist for what felt 
like a very long time for 8 months of 2000.  The shooting pain that radiated 
from my neck straight down to my right arm and down my right leg would keep me 
up all night and transformed me into someone with crankiness, unmotivated, and 
self-doubt syndrome.  You might as well throw in depressed too since everything 
I did from simple tasks like pouring a pitcher of water aggravated the 
situation.   The solution my company gave me was to give me an ergonomic mouse, 
chair, wrist guards and told me to sit up straight.  The situation got worse as 
the tingling became non-stop.  I decided to go see a doctor and get x-rays.  
Good news was they didn't see anything wrong physically in my wrists so carpel 
tunnel was not physically evident yet.  You're fine they say and couldn't 
explain why I was in pain.   After I refused to agree that I was imagining my 
pain, they prescribed some physical therapy for me that involved massaging my 
forearms, ultrasound therapy, parafin wax and some wrist twirling exercises.  
These therapies relieved the pain for several hours but the pain would come 
right back regardless of what I was doing.  After 4 months of therapy, they 
basically gave up on me and said I was doing better and that I didn't need 
anymore therapy and told me to keep up my exercises.   So I did.  And so the 
pain continued.  Found myself a new doctor and he told me the same thing.  I was 
so sick of hearing these doctors tell me I was fine, when I wasn't feeling 
fine.  I decided to seek out alternative healing methods and saw an 
acupuncturist who treated my entire right side instead of just my wrist and 
forearms.  The acupuncture was a slower method of healing, but after many 
sessions, I began to feel the effects.  


One day, my coworker invited me to a yoga class they had just started at 
noontime at work.   I went.  It was the utmost unpleasant and pleasant 
experience all together.  My first down dog was hell!  Who would want to stick 
their behinds up in the air and put so much strain on the wrist?  I stayed and 
suffered for the hour.  At the end, I left hating and loving yoga all at the 
same time.  At that time, I couldn't remember when the last time I truly relaxed 
and slept like I did in savasana.  I decided to come back and thought the 
suffering in down dog was well worth the "high" I felt after class. 


After doing yoga for several months, I was rewarded with days of no repetitive 
muscle strain.  I became aware of when the symptoms were going to flare and 
would do yoga to counteract it and eventually I was able to heal myself 
completely.

This is when my yoga practice would become a distant memory until I became 
pregnant with my first child.  The aches and pains of pregnancy sent me back to 
yoga.  The breathing techniques I learned in yoga helped me during child birth 
when I decided that "hee haw hee haw hee haw" was a breath that should be used 
when I play farm animals with my new baby.  Yoga was there for me during 
postpartum and I gained my strength and body back within a month.  Yoga was 
there for me during my 2nd pregnancy and I barely remembered the 2 hour labor 
that flashed by.

I eventually left my career as a high techy and am now teaching yoga.  I still 
get the pains every now and then for no apparent reason that would drive me 
insane.   It was not until I completed my level 2 teacher training that 
challenged me to look at myself on a more deeper and wholesome level.  I went 
through my life with a fine tooth comb and questioned everything I did.  I 
thought I was prescribing to what I thought was "healthy."  I exercised, 
meditated, and ate what I thought was healthy.   It was not until I met a 
nutritionist who intriqued me with his unconventional way of thinking.  He 
introduced me to metabolic typing nutrition where I should only eat what my body 
needs chemically (i.e. how my body metabolizes).  So after ten years of enduring 
and trying to combat my muscle pains, I healed myself completely and found the 
exact cause of my pains within two weeks of being on a metabolic nutrition 
plan.  I discovered that certain foods were causing muscle inflammation at the 
site of an old injury.  

Yoga has taken me on a journey of self discovery on all possible levels of 
humaness in the physical, mental, and spiritual realms.   At each stage of my 
experience, I learned how to tap into the power of my intuition and sharpen my 
eye of awareness.  Yoga has taught me how to look at my myself as a whole and 
not just the nagging  pain I often associated myself with. I've learned how to 
converse with the sensations in my body and listen to what they are telling 
me...granted all this is a work in progress and will continue to be as the 
present moment is always recreated.   I love yoga and now when I wake up each 
morning, the first thing I think is "Hello World!" with much gratitude and 
enthusiasm. I could go on and on about what yoga has done to transform me but it 
wouldn't mean a thing if you didn't experience it for yourself.  


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Readers, have you experienced yoga or physiotherapy on an injury?  What were the results?  Have you ever been in a situation where you tried alternative and modern medicine?  How did they compare? 

As always I would love to hear your voices in the comments! :)  Namaste.

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