Had a wonderful session with my trainer, GG yesterday. Was feeling very tired initially, and tried to make all excuses to avoid going jogging. And the first jog was really hard. But because of GG's motivation, I kept at it. And he kept me interested by talking about knowledge and what is the mind on the way back. On the jog up, we concentrated only on the jog and the physical body, and the way down was knowledge session about what is the mind. He explained that there are multiple sections of the mind - one is the intellect. The intellect tries to dissect. Every problem that it is given, it'll try to break it down into smaller pieces to try to understand it. But sometimes in doing that, we lose the bigger picture. During the dissection of a frog for example, we'll cut it and get to know all the parts of the frog, but by the time we're done, the frog is dead - the live frog is no more. So the intellect by dissecting can lose the bigger picture. So in Hindu philosophy, it is first taught - Aham Bramhasmi ! I am Brahman - the universe. And if we start with that understanding, and then think about different things, we'll reach the right conclusion - that is real 'chintan'. The other part of the mind is the 'identity'. This is what we identify ourselves with. So if we identify ourselves as a woman or a man, as an Indian or American, as Hindus or Christians... All these are our identities. We think in terms of our identities - or we get restricted in terms of our identities. Brahman is again bigger than our identities. So we always need to remember we're bigger than our identity. Or even get out of our identity when trying to do chintan. That is thinking without any restriction of identity.
During meditation or dhyan, concentrate on the breathe. Breathe is the connection between the body and the mind. Breath is tied to life. Observe the breath without any intellect or identity. Without any judgement. Observe where it is touching the body. Also observe what happens to the breathe when we breathe in and breath out...where does the connection of the breath with the body end? This is good way to start chintan ...that will lead to realizations.
Then, we came back and did our workout...it was energizing. I also discovered that I had some sciatica pain. GG was able to show stretches and acupressure points to relieve the pain. The sciatica pain was completely gone by the end of our session - and I was feeling my energy coming back up.
The next morning, out of nowhere, it seemed, I sprained my back - but -- what a blessing in disguise it has turned out to be. The pain was a sharp pain, which started radiating in my chest as well..and every breath was increasing the pain. I told GG abt the pain. And he mentioned we'll resolve it in today's training. Then he said 'until then enjoy the pain'. And I was thinking - what! Why would anyone say enjoy the pain?! What does he even mean by that. I waited all day for the session.
I was really looking forward to see how he'd help with the pain - maybe there were some stretches or acupressure points that he could help with. But the way he started the session was very different. He said we'll start with meditation - and try to reduce pain that way. Since the pain was in the back and chest, we first focused on the surya or heart chakra. Breathing out of the heart chakra. After that we concentrated on the pain area and were able to localize the pain to two spots in the back. Next we did some stretching and exercises - that relieved the pain in one of the spots. The other one was still hurting a lot. So he suggested that we do a meditation. The meditation was about accepting the pain. Even though, the pain is there, I am ok. Even though I acknowledge the pain, everything else is ok. This thought stuck me very much - to acknowledge the pain and then accept it - and still feel that I am ok - it felt very relieving. It felt like I am always ok inspite of everything that is happening - some of which might be painful. Saying that I am ok made all the other parts relax, and accepting the pain allowed the pain to start healing. Everytime when something painful happens, it starts to affect all the other parts as well... Like during this back pain, the nerves around it also were concerned, and everything seemed very contracted - and painful - even chest had started hurting. By saying I am ok, all the other parts relaxed, and just the hurt part could begin it's own healing. The healing process is always internal - the body can do it's own real healing.I think I can apply this to almost all parts of life - I have been in the past used to denying the pain or not acknowledging it..which just makes it worse since it tries to assert itself more. But just the acceptance and acknowledgment that the pain is there, I think that starts it's healing.
After the I am ok meditation, the pain in the back reduced a lot - even tho it hadn't stopped completely, I was smiling! And the pain was now manageable. I completely believe that the healing started - and by the next day, the pain was just at 5%.
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