For the past 11 years, I have been struggling with chronic pain. It started with a soccer accident, that caused chronic headaches. Nobody could find the cause and in the view of doctors, I didn’t have anything wrong. They told me “Normally you don’t have headaches in that age”.
Alternative healing systems
With no help from modern medical doctors. And alternative medicines, like traditional Chinese medicine, Ayurveda or naturopathic procedures aren’t that accepted, in society and especially from doctors or health insurance. Apart from that, there are still a lot of practitioners of alternative medicines for whom you have to pay for privately. For that reason, it’s quite hard to find somebody who can actually help you or guide you to help with chronic pain. Because when you don’t have the knowledge of the difference between someone who makes money and someone who actually knows what he’s doing. In addition, you have to trust this kind of medicines and it took me quite a time to do that.
Looking for cure
Throughout the years I ended up accepting that I have to live with my headaches, which come in all kind of different forms as well as all the other pains and issues which developed in that time as well, like circulatory disorders through low blood pressure, back- and neck pain, hip problems, dry eyes, strong nausea and so on. I wasn’t able to figure out where which pain comes from and couldn’t listen to my body, because there were just too many different issues going on at the same time. At least at this point, I thought they were all different issues and injuries.
Throughout the time and a lot of visits to all kinds of doctors and practitioners, I found one person who really could give help to me and took me seriously. She is an alternative healer, who practiced mostly “dorn therapy”. Throughout the last 8 years, this has helped me to reduce my pain to a level, which was quite endurable. She was always the one person who listened to all my body issues, took them seriously and found something which could help at least a bit.
Through her, I started trusting and following up with traditional medicines as well as yoga and opened more up to spirituality. Two years ago I got to a point, where I couldn’t “ignore” my pain anymore and knew that I have to change something. In that time I also became closed friends with a girl, who is into spirituality, see’s aura and chakras of people and practices Reiki. I didn’t know her quite well before, but I trusted her and felt a deep connection to her from the first moment on. Because of this deep connection, my experiences before, and something inside of me which always seemed to know that there is something more, I started to find my way to spirituality and to yoga. When I started practicing yoga, I finally found what I was looking for. It’s hard to explain, but from that day my chronic pain began, I just knew deep inside me, that something in my body shifted and that there is a way to change that back, but I didn’t have the knowledge to know-how.
Through practicing yoga I noticed, that the pain in my body started to shift and that all pains throughout my body parts are connected somehow. At that same time, I went through a lot of treatments and stayed home in terms of long time illness because I didn’t have one day without any complaints and my body was just exhausted. After all kinds of treatments my pain reduced and for the first time, I could start listening to my body. I still wasn’t in a good place, but I finally knew that there was the possibility to get rid of my pain one day and that my body has this capacity. It felt like the pain was trying to get out of my body but didn’t know-how. I began to read more and more about Ayurveda, yoga, Buddhism, and chakra and started to bring it more in my lifestyle. But there is so much different literature to all of these topics, that at one point I just found my limit to do it on my own.
When I came to the yoga teaching training, I didn’t have expectations, I just hoped to get more knowledge about yoga. Until this point, I couldn’t connect probably all these different topics I was already concentrating on doing (asanas, nutrition, awareness, breath, etc) to each other. Already in the first days, I absorbed all the information and could finally put together all the pieces, which were in my head. Especially breath and energy flow were two topics, which really hit me. I knew through my close friend I mentioned before, that energy flows in our body’s and that you can charge yourself with energy from the universe, but I couldn’t grasp it until the first time I felt it.
I heard often before in classes, that I should allow the energy to flow and to feel it. As well I heard before, that breathing in the belly is more healthy than breathing in the breast.
But I never totally understood the meaning of it, until here. In pranayama and anatomy, we learned about diaphragmatic breathing and the benefits and how actually to breathe. Before that, I just breathed in my belly and really concentrated on that but when I started to concentrate on the diaphragm I felt like I’m out of breath. I tried hard but it just didn’t work.
Until one day, I don’t actually know why I started to concentrate on my third eye while trying to breathe and then it suddenly changed. I started to breathe deeply and through my diaphragm and it felt completely different. Shortly after that, we talked again about how to let the energy flow in asanas, particularly in one position. We lay down on the belly and should tense up our toes and our whole leg and then bring up our leg with energy and not force. I kind of knew that it can be possible and that people are able to do it, but I never experienced it. So when I tried it on my left leg it suddenly moved more up without me doing anything. It felt totally weird but amazing at the same time and it just felt like I finally found my way to spirituality finally.
After this first experience with prana, I felt it more often. In Shavasana, I could find deep diaphragmatic breathing for the first time and prana started to flow in my back and straighten my hyperlordosis a bit. After these two first experiences with prana flow as well as with all the input about philosophy, anatomy and the practices, I just knew that I’m at the start of my own spiritual journey. One method I was always most curious about is meditation. I read a lot about it, how it benefits you and your lifestyle, but I just couldn’t find my way to it. When I sat there in my flat trying to meditate, I just ended up doing all my open tasks.
Now I slowly start to understand the quality of meditation. I began to look forward the most to the meditation classes and to integrate meditation in my daily life. Not because I don’t enjoy the input of philosophy or anatomy or I don’t like doing asanas, but because of starting to really feel my physical as well as my energy body and starting to get to know myself better. Through getting to know myself better, I finally start to understand my pain more and finally can get healthy.
But most importantly I began to understand where yoga comes from and what it really means. I started to realize, that I’m already trying to follow a few ‘rules’ from the 8 Limbs of Ashtanga Yoga in the last year, I just didn’t know the connection. And I’m keen to be a yogi, not only in asanas but in my whole life. I’m looking forward to learning more and more about Hatha Yoga, Yoga sutra and the Vedas and even to share it. I know, it’s still a long way to go, but I am slowly finding my purpose, myself and my spirituality.
