November 18, 2023
No Shame
Elizabeth Brass
Certified Senior Iyengar Yoga Teacher & Yoga Therapist (IAYT)
It's the small progressions in ourselves that often go unseen.
By not recognizing our own progress, it's easy to become frustrated.
The positive changes in our posture, in our energy, in our outlook over time are impossible to measure.
Because we can't measure the transformations that occur in us from our yoga practice, they go under valued.
The shame around not feeling well is a disease. Shame infects us because we weren't listened to in the past. Shame infects us because we can't afford or find help. Shame infects us because of our fear of burdening loved ones or because of our perceived damage.
Like all diseases, shame enters our body/mind, and the infection increases, creating more harm. One night two years ago, I was woken up with searing lower back pain. It was as if a clamp gripped the base of my back and wouldn't let go. I tried to move but everything hurt. Eventually, I maneuvered myself into positions that I thought would relieve the pain. When morning came, I tried to get out of bed and didn't know what hit me.
Then the loop of worry and self-recriminations began: What had I done wrong? How could this have happened? What caused the pain?
Shame destroys our confidence.
One of the blessings of Iyengar yoga practice is that we learn to revisit our experiences, past and present, and to investigate the subtle and gross parts of ourselves. How do I stand and how do I walk? What have I been carrying and how? How do I sit and how do I lay down? Taking an inventory of my life, relationships and yoga practice helped me move the shame into a starting point for change.
Then I remembered that once when I was in Pune studying at RIMYI, in Geeta's class there was a woman who hadn't told Geetaji that she was menstruating. Then, when the time came for headstand, the woman announced that she had her period. That was it! Geetaji stopped class, and told everyone that we practice yoga not just for our current self, but for our future health too. Today we feel fine, there's no apparent change whatsoever, physically or mentally but that doesn't mean there's nothing changing inside of us. There is always a change, not just with our cycle but with everything impacting us. Explore it and take care now.
I started to then think about my lower back more in my practice and in my life. Both had to change. I changed. No shame
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