so here i was, cleaning the toilet, when i reached over and zing, i strained my lower back, right above the hip bone.
quite a fascinating experience, and what i’m learning from it can be applied to other areas of life as well:
- when there is a warning sign, pay attention and stop.
- after the injury, be it physical or emotional, relax.
- allow your system to take notice but don’t seize up. the hurt is in one part of your life, not in all of it.
- just like a martial artist, allow the natural course of things to aid you.
- keep paying attention.
- experiment with what you can do and what you can’t do.
- give yourself more rest than normal but don’t stop completely.
here’s how this learning came about
fortunately, i used to be a bodyworker so i have a bit of an idea what to do. as soon as the pain hit, i realized this was serious, different from a little bump or the type of random nerve firing we get once in a while. i immediately stopped what i was doing, stood still, and tried to relax my back as much as possible.
as i’ve mentioned in a previous post, i know that many long-term consequences of such injuries stem not from the original trauma but from the whole area involuntarily trying to seize up, and from other compensatory movements and postures. so i did some gentle gravity exercises to counteract that.
throughout the day i paid attention to my back and performed very careful exercises, feeling for which muscles needed to stretch and which ones needed to be left alone. i gave myself a good mix of normal movement and rest.
my body was very tired at the end of the day, but it was an “ok” type of tired, and i went to bed early. it’s slowly getting better; i have to be careful but i also feel that my body is healing.
thanks, body, for this teaching.
and, needless to say, i didn’t need any reminding to do my grounding exercises. this sort of experience makes it very easy for me to stay in my body!