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One of the reasons I love yoga is because it's honest. And it forces me to be honest with myself. More than that, it allows me to see ways that I subconsiously affect and afflict myself. I don't just have neck pain. Period. I have neck pain because I breathe shallow-like in my upper chest in this sort of panic state all the time (like most Westerners). Frankly, I brute my body and mind too much through life. And I fight what is and stuff down feelings I deem wrong for a person as wonderful and enlightened as myself. All of which I didn't really start to understand 'til I saw it in yoga. Til I saw my shoulders up around my ears when I was reaching for a deep, calming breath. Til I saw myself building instead of releasing tension as a matter of habit. But I did yoga for two years before I saw it. You can fool yourself only for so long, thinking that your neck pain and headaches are just a matter of course. A matter for pain pills and chiropractors and cursings and complaints. Eventually, if you do yoga long enough, you'll see your own contributions to your life--to your neck pain, eating disorder, sickness, marital skeletons, whatever. And if you're brave and patient and accepting, you'll change. But it's not a given in yoga. You do anything just to benefit your ego, and you'll never really grow from it. Same with yoga. Yoga just holds up a mirror for you. Sure, the beauty is visible. The divinity. The glorious soul. But so is everything else. And you can keep bending and breathing and loving your yoga-fit body and the show you're putting on for yourself, but one day you'll eventually break. And you'll either deal with that and let yourself change, or give up yoga and search out other stages for your performance for your ego. Though I'm used to a good fight, protecting and defending the constructs I've created to encase my fragile sense of the world, I'm in this one for the honesty. I'm here to figure out and accept what I see in that mirror. Pain in the neck, ck [2003-04-20]
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