What my back pain taught me this week
Last week on Tuesday, I woke up with a bit of back pain but I thought it will loosen up throughout the day. Instead it just got worse and worse to the point that the only position that was okay was lying down. I was slowly witnessing my upper body shift forward and to the side, unable to stand straight anymore.
A condition I know well but I was disappointed that it showed up again after having vanished for 1 year and a half. I thought we were done with that – yes sometimes I think like Gollum.
Then I thought that it was probably the stress of the stand-up happening the next day because the exact same thing happened before my very first time on stage. And that by Thursday, everything shall be fine again!
Which of course wasn’t what happened (cause) on Thursday I started a 4 day body-work training!
Then I thought: ah! It must be the training then! Something to do with the resistance of my ego towards the inner work?! Or maybe I’m simply not ready for that work? Or not made for that work?
But then on Monday, still in pain, I flushed all my theories down the toilet and dove into Monday mode (= doing mode cause it’s Monday and I didn’t do ‘anything’ for the past 4 days so I have to be productive). Later on, on top of the back pain came diarrhea just before an ‘important’ appointment. My only goal during the appointment, was not to have to run to the toilet and it was luckily a success!
By the end of the day I really thought: that’s it my body is collapsing, it’s giving up, I’m done here. In retrospect maybe that was my desperate surrendering moment.
The next day I FINALLY understood that the only thing my body asked me to do was to simply lie down because I was only comfortable in this position. So for the first time during a WEEK DAY, I allowed myself to read a NOVEL without feeling bad about it AND without thinking I still had to do a thousand things.
The next day I could stand & walk straight again!
It’s so interesting to me, that Soul-Mind-Body connection!
It’s so interesting that we have to nearly die before we will chill out! And chill out properly = without feeling guilty! Maybe the toughest part of all! That guilt that unable us to enjoy the present moment because we always think we should be working hard or doing something.
But like the Soul movie teaches us *spoiler alert!*: it’s about the little things and it’s about being present and aware enough to enjoy them! It’s about noticing the leaves changing colors, the beautiful light at 7pm, tasting that coffee with all your senses or even reading this post with your full attention.
