The other day I wrote a bit about hip openers, and how double pigeon was my favourite. Well, I've come a long way since then, and I've realized that double pigeon is probably the most intense hip opener there is, and it doesn't make much sense to do it in isolation, unless one really doesn't have time for anything else. Today, I held a standing, high, and low lunge on each side for 30 seconds per stretch. Then I put each of my legs up on the high sink one at a time and stretched again. Then I did the Bikram-style tree on either side. Only then did I do double pigeon; it was so much smoother! The whole routine took me under ten minutes, and my hips and lower back felt really great after.
Relieving tension in my hips is so important to me right now. Doing my own stretches as I feel inclined has become one of the most important parts of keeping myself well.
I am at a point where I can feel very good in my body if I do the right things: that is, drink enough water, get enough sleep, stretch the right way, do yoga, do other physical activity, and - most importantly - breathe through any and all stressful moments and not allow myself for longer than a split second to tense up. I have realized at the age of 35 that tensing up in stressful moments and/or not taking necessary measures to stay calm is the absolute worst thing I can do for my health. I know this on a deep, intuitive level, and nothing - NOTHING - written in any medical text could ever convince me otherwise. This is why I think it is such bullshit when people cite smoking, alcohol, food, the environment, lifestyle, genetics, bad luck, etc. as the only major factors when illness occurs in the body. Don't get me wrong, these things are all significant. But what could matter more than when stress and fear instead of fulfillment and happiness overtake the body?
Nothing!
One more thing I have to say on this topic that is really important, and I feel that I am something of an authority on the subject because I am quite prone to stress and fear and methods of coping, is that the big New Age 3: yoga, meditation, and positive thinking, DO help ... But ultimately, there's something far more important: figuring out how you really feel, who you really are, and expressing that 100% no holds barred.
I read a very important message from a man who's been teaching yoga for over 40 years: (Tony Crisp - google him, he's got some amazing stuff on his website): he says that these 3 activties can actually maek a person worse, because if there are real things in your life, from your past or that are happening right now, or what have you, that are causing you to experience negative emotion, and you use say, positive thinking, to help you feel better, what you could actually be doing is pushing a reaction that needs to be expressed into your subconscious, where it is liable to rot and poison you. This resonated as very, very significant to me, because recently I've been unearthing a lot of memories from my younger years that I've been feeling quite upset about. For many years, I've told myself to forgive and forget, to let the past go, and thoughts like that, and it does work. I'm not even saying that I don't want to think like that anymore, but I am concerned that this way of thinking does not actually heal the hurt. It goes on hurting beneath the surface. Similarly, you can feel glorious and relaxed for fleeting instances during meditation, and certainly relaxed and grand physically after a yoga class, but these are temporary states that don't necessarily lead a person directly to a satisfactory level of being. And then you look around and see your life is basically perfect, but you can't figure out why for the life of you, that deep happiness that you've caught in glimpses and glimmers, is totally out of reach, and a lack of satisfaction, of fulfillment, continues to prevail. The power of the subconscious!
I do believe that there are good and effective ways of bringing negative emotions, stored hurts, and painful memories, to the surface, and facing them properly and perhaps neutralizing them, and I think that yoga, meditation, and positive thinking can be wonderfully beneficial as part of that process. But I'm not sure about the right way to do that yet. Tony Crisp says these practices can be seen as suppressing our true inclinations, of controlling ourselves, and that this can have consequences in the form of paranoia, phobias, depression, etc. I had never looked at it that way before, but as I said, it does resonate with me. I certainly think there's something to be said for sitting in your room alone and doing your own little yoga/dance/meditation/stretching/crying/ laughing/taking a short nap when you want to routine!
Just some food for thought.
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