The Obstacle is Part of the Path

When I first started on my yoga path, my lower back pain became worse and worse.

I started yoga to heal my aching back, and it did, and then it got worse. 

I kept re-injuring it through the vigorous Ashtanga practice, and I was so annoyed by it! I was hobbling out of my second teacher training, living on Advil.

How could this be? 

I was embarrassed by my back pain, which made my spine look disfigured. I was ashamed of it. 

I was so angry at it. It seriously got in the way. 

I wrote about this in my book, The Empowered Yogi, and how one of the last healers I went to wrote on my chart, “She needs to heal herself”. He told me I needed to heal my first and second chakra issues. 

Ok…how???

Not too long after that, I came across directions on how to meditate. These were simple instructions for visualizing a lotus flower opening and closing with my breath through each chakra.

The seven chakras are energy centers that start from the base of the spine up to the crown of the head. 

It said that if you do this every day, it will change your life. 

So, that was my format to start meditating.

And it worked. 

I spent much time meditating on the root chakra’s flower at the base of my spine, opening and closing while rooting deep into the earth to ground myself. 

I then moved up to the second chakra in my lower abdomen, focusing on the flower expanding and contracting with my breath. This was where I needed the most healing. 

The second chakra is where we store ancestral cellular memory. I discovered that I was very angry toward the Catholic church I was raised in. I also realized that I carried generations of Catholic guilt in this area. 

My mother, a very devout Catholic, died of ovarian cancer, and my grandmother had uterine cancer (both second chakra). 

This is where my chronic pain resided that no amount of doctors and healers could fix. This was an inside job. 

When I began meditating on my heart chakra, the ultimate healer, it naturally wanted to shine down onto the second chakra, my lower back and abdomen, and send healing there. 

After months dedicated to meditating daily like this, my back started to free up. 

My friends told me I seemed different. I was different. 

My husband noticed that I was less critical and judgemental. 

I loved meditating! As long as I had this format, it wasn’t so daunting. And it was seriously helping me in more ways than one. 

Had I not had this lower back pain, I probably wouldn’t have taken up meditation. 

My chronic pain was the mud for the lotus - of meditation and healing- to grow from. 

For years, my back pain was perceived as an obstacle. But obstacles are part of the path. 

If you need help starting meditation and practices to deal with chronic pain and difficult emotions, consider joining the Emotional Endurance virtual program for the spring.

Namaste,

Maggie