HOW TO Turn Pain into Pleasure? With YogaBabies!

In my recent Yoga practice I have had major highs, feeling like a million Bradburys, thinking that only your body can let you feel such pinnacles of pleasure.

However, I have also felt more acute pains during my practice than before.

And when I was moaning, whining and complaining about this to my inner monitor, this lovely trainer Kate Comer seems to have sensed it. For she came during one of the exercises and stretched my back. I sobbed and sobbed and sobbed. Why? Because, it was one of these rare occasions where somebody could relate to my experience and acknowledge it in a soothing way… She also acknowledged this ‘opportunity for letting things come up and go’ when closing the session. It’s ‘nice’ to feel acknowledged, for it’s tough to live with the presence of pain for 40 years, I can assure you.

But when I saw Kate again yesterday, she suggested to call it ‘sensation’ – i.e. take the ‘sting’ out of ‘pain’. She has acquired this experience through Yoga and the birth of her own two babies. Hence she is now passing her knowledge on by teaching classes for Yoga Babies.

I just wish that not only women learned about giving birth with more awareness but also men and women when they make love. Conscious conception is an art never taught in the West. In the East, however, we know of not only the Art of Tantra but also the Tao of Sex!

What is it with this Western male analytical mind that domineered for two millennia? Well, it’s just called evolution of humanity and planet in one universe. Remember: Yoga means unity, unison, oneness…

And in the Western mindset of mathematics I discovered this in terms of time, space and measuring. But that’s going to be another blog post.

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• 7 Ways to Have Tantric Experiences (dailycupofyoga.com)
• Pleasure v. Pain: Which Brings More Pleasure? (everyoneneedsanalgonquin.com)
• Pain and Pleasure (nalqaseer.com)
• Pain and Pleasure (angela2bpoetic.wordpress.com)
• Why yoga? (tantrayogachicago.com)
• Why I Traded My Career As a Tantric Sexual Healer for Yoga & Meditation. ~ Maya Yonika (elephantjournal.com)
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STARTING a new 7-year-Cycle of re-locating a dis-located hip

Schematic Examples of CNS Structural Changes in chronic pain (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Emma is one of the senior teachers who has accompanied my odyssey since I started Bikram Yoga in 2005. Yesterday I asked her to watch my ‘general mess’, as I’m soo emotional about going to Geneva to celebrate 50 years of Computing @ CERN – where the web was born – my then employer who sent me to Lawrence Radiation Lab. But on the way, the driver, a physicist friend of mine, fell asleep and we fell 24 feet down the motorway…

Taking stock must take place on a number of levels:

The dislocated hip:

• it feels as if the fine re-location keeps going on, and I only noticed that since about a year;
• it was only through Bikram Yoga that I became aware of how my body had accommodated for the dislocation;
• only through Bikram have I experienced the re-alignment that had become necessary and that includes both knees badly!

Pain: 

• a LOT better, but still often enough bad enough, when every step and both hips hurt in bed;
• who would have thought that my right arm and shoulder need to hurt these days – to realign everything else,  while relocating my left hip?

Physical well-being:

• TERRIFIC: instead of ageing, I at least stopped the process, if I haven’t reversed it, counting the number of grey hair.

Mental well-being:

• those 90 minutes of moving meditation are priceless, in terms of allowing ‘stuff’ to come up and let go.

All in all, I can only count my blessings. But: do I kid myself, maybe? Is there more emotional pain that is waiting to be released? After all, my life has been far from easy with 40 years of chronic pain. But who said it would be a rose garden?

Still. There are soo many people whose lives are soo much harder… I shall keep enjoying mine as much as I possibly can!

Related articles

• Yoga Junkie? (mbouchon.wordpress.com)
• Hot and humid: Introducing Bikram yoga (independent.co.uk)
• Physical vs Emotional pain (memoirsofabeautifuldreamer.wordpress.com)
• Pain Relief and Hypnosis (leccoworkshop.com)
• Can you heal yourself just by becoming more aware? (steveblankjrcpt.wordpress.com)
• 23 Tips for Supporting a Partner with Chronic Pain. ~ Pete Beisner (elephantjournal.com)
• Write Through Your Pain (stranglingmymuse.wordpress.com)
• Natural Remedies for Joint Health (purevitamins.com.au)
• Bikram Yoga Brevard offers sweat therapy (blueridgenow.com)

Probably by the end of this summer I’ll be pain free…

During Bikram classes I often write a blog post in my mind, describing what I experience: the utter miraculousness of the wisdom of the body that knows how to heal itself. Don’t ask me about pain though. It’s as if the last haul has to be made particularly hard and tough so that the prospect of being pain free can really be enjoyed!

I would never have suggested a time limit. But recently I was told in a dream that “probably by the end of this summer I’ll be free of my pains”… Should I force it and go every day for the final stretch? No, I shall continue to go when I feel like it; when it feels I need to stretch such that I feel DIFFERENTLY afterwards. For that never fails, no matter how tough you may feel during a class because of the stress and strain of the exercises in the heat.

Why would my left arm have to become so painful, as my left leg is straightening itself out? I guess, because everything is connected in unfathomable ways…

It’s rather intriguing: when I started seven years ago, my lower back was so ‘brittle’ and my neck was so limited in its movement. My shoulders feel loose, even though they are still more than tight. But the latest adjustments are the most superficial layers around hip, thigh and knee, as if the first changes were the deepest on the level of joints and bones.

Utterly miraculous – the sum total of determination, persistence, perseverance and commitment: to healing and helping others by healing self. What else is worth doing???

Related articles

• Why chronic pain is all in your head: Early brain changes predict which patients develop chronic pain (sciencedaily.com)
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From Mis-Alignment to Good Alignment – guided by Pain Signals

It’ll be seven years soon that I will have done my 26 postures – with more pain than pleasures, more anguish than Buddhahood, but not more tears than smiles!

For the constant observation of progress is soo reassuring! It is such a pleasure to know and feel how the left side of my body re-aligns such that, eventually, the hip won’t hurt and the knee will be functioning rather than crackle, topple and flop!

The most intriguing aspect is that the alignment reaches even the fingers and thumbs! And that the gradualness even means a certain ‘going back’ in particular postures.