The Healing Process

Here's a picture to keep my momma updated on my life (she's not on Facebook). A picture of me and my friends from this weekend. As you can see, I need to tan.

First off, I want to say I do appreciate the comments from my posts on relationships. They gave me a lot of food for thought and one of them even made me blush. ;)

As I had mentioned a few weeks ago, I am nursing a left hamstring injury that popped out of nowhere. When I came back to Texas I was working slowly through Primary series everyday, because Primary series is named "Yoga therapy" for it's ability to heal and open up the body. I was (and still am) taking weekly epsom salt baths to loosen up the muscles and massaging my hamstring (and shoulder) with castor oil daily to break down the scar tissue.

Last week I finally returned to practicing with my teacher (the commitment-phobe in me doesn't want to call him "my teacher," but that's really what he's become) and he watched my practice for 3 days before banning me from Primary series.

He told me he knows that Primary is supposed to be healing, but what my hamstrings need right now is a complete break. To heal something, sometimes you need to just leave it alone for awhile. Instead, I'm doing the little bit of Intermediate series I know (as well as finally learning what I've been avoiding forever: the handstand) until he gives me the okay to go back to practicing the hamstring-aggravating Primary series.

This reminds me of a story I had read in Nischala Joy Devi's translation of the Yoga Sutras. She was talking about how she was going to refuse medication after a complicated dental procedure because she doesn't believe in taking medication. After all, no pain, no gain right? The dentist returned the prescription back to her, saying "You may want to rethink that. Research has determined that when even moderate pain is experienced, the healing process is inhibited." (The Secret Power of Yoga, page 25).

This blows my mind. In a culture where our mantra is "no pain, no gain," in a world where discomfort is taken as a sign of growth and progress, could it be possible that sometimes letting things sit and rest can be more effective than dealing with pain and problems head on? One of the faculty in my area at school (Pennebaker) found in his research on the effects of expressive writing on health that it's actually healthier to NOT talk through traumatizing events the first few days after they occur.

So when do we take immediate action and when do we let things sit? When there is a rift in a relationship, do we allow things to sit for a little or do we address the issue straightaway? We're taught to address problems immediately because problems will only grow worse over time. But clearly that's not always the case. When do we act, and when is it okay to wait?