Last weekend I went to the Dru centre in Snowdonia. It's where I trained to be a yoga teacher and I volunteer there from time to time. Some weekends I have volunteered there I have worked my socks off and I love it but last weekend I probably didn't pull my weight because I was so tired. No one there would hold that against me at all I know, it's a very special place. There were two courses running one was a teacher training course and the other a Back Pain course which is for people who are already teachers who want to become yoga therapists.
I sat in on a back pain session which was being taught by Coby Langford. Coby is an osteopath and a yogi and I knew that I would learn a lot from her session. Coby and Mansukh Patel have developed a CD which uses yoga to heal back pain and Coby was sharing with the group the process of refinement that she and Mansukh went through in developing their approach. It seems that when people come to Coby with back pain any strengthening exercises that she might give them more often than not would make the pain worse.
Coby explained that the core muscles are postural muscles and the erector spinae muscle along the spine is a movement muscle. Normally the core muscles have a good and regular dialogue with the brain and you don't need to think about switching them on they just work automatically. What happens with many people though is that through poor posture, injury, childbirth or whathaveyou that automatic dialogue between your core muscles and the brain ceases. The messages from the core muscles to the brain can't get through due to the white noise that is bombarding the brain from other muscles that are in pain in the body. The erector spine which is used for movement - not normally posture - has been recruited by the body to help out because the core muscles have gone off line. The poor erector spinae muscles (and often the gluteals as well) have to work very hard to do the job of holding your posture when in fact that was not what they were designed for. They work and work, and they become rigid and tense and they scream with pain. Until you re-establish dialogue between the core muscles and the brain - and you learn to relax and strengthen the other muscles - you will have back pain. The way to switch on that brain/core dialogue is to use the core muscles, contracting them gently, and regularly.
Coby also went on to talk about "strong" muscles. Many people think they have strong back muscles because they work out, or they are well defined or whatever. However the definition of a strong muscle is not one that holds on and holds on tight - like that rigid erector spinae or scrunched up glutes - a strong muscle is one that is able to relax. So... when Coby is working through the back pain programme with people it's very important that they take the time to relax their muscles, to stretch them and release them - this takes up to 2 weeks. It is at this point that they gently start to need to strengthen - so the second part of the programme kicks in. Coby could not emphasise enough how important that period of release and relaxing was in healing back pain.
Now, this, I hope, is very interesting to anyone suffering with back pain and I completely recommend that you get Coby's CD on Back Pain - check out www.druworldwide.com - but the reason it has made it onto my blog is for the lessons I took from Coby's lecture - about myself.
I resonate completely with the story of the core/brain dialogue and the rigid movement muscles on a metaphorical level. I can see in myself that quality of the erector spinae that works so hard, trying its best to be all things to all people - holding things together when my purpose is to be fluid and move. I hear the message that a strong spine is one that can relax - and that it needs to relax then strengthen in order to heal. I also realise that I have lost touch with my core because of the bombardment of chatter and pain that has clogged up my airwaves. All the things I have been trying to do that were not in alignment with my core values and my higher self have distracted and distorted me, pulling me off centre and caused me pain.
So, to take the analogy further I now completely understand why I need time out and why I am burnt out despite having so many tools in my box. I need to relax and release. I need to re-engage my core and re-establish dialogue between my mind and my higher self, to return to my core values. Then I need to rebuild my strength gently so as to not interupt that conversation with god with unnecessary noise from my ever faithful body which has been trying its best, bless it. I know now that to keep going on this ultra marathon will never make me stronger - it will kill me one way or another - real strength is the ability to relax and to let go. To surrender... to the higher self and the gut instincts of my own wisdom.
I share this journey of mine because I learn so much from reading and hearing other people's journeys so I hope this can help others too.
Thank you so much to Coby Langford, Mansukh Patel and everyone at Dru for shining their light. And thank you to me - for being a willing pupil on this path. Namaste xxx
