My Research on Chronic Pain Recovery

by Sarah Yoga

Many years ago, I had the opportunity to study with the legendary pain researcher Lorimer Moseley, and during one of his presentations, he said, “We need to start talking about recovery.”

That idea stuck with me—and became part of the inspiration for my Master’s thesis, which explored the experience of personal recovery from chronic pain.

Many of the people I interviewed for this research shared their stories in the hope that it would help others, and in that spirit, I created a website to share their stories, along with the key themes that emerged from the research.

If you are interested in learning more, including accessing the full thesis, you can visit: https://chronicpainrecovery.ca/

“Or this could be Hell.”

by Sarah Awareness Ishvarapranidhana Living Yoga Meditation Yoga


I attended a yoga class 10-or-so-years ago that was themed around this line from the Eagles’ Hotel California:

“This could be Heaven or this could be Hell.”

The intention behind the theme was to emphasize the idea that we can influence our experience of things. An experience, in this case, a set of challenging asana (yoga postures), could be heaven or hell depending on how we respond to it.

Wisdom has a way of weaving itself through our lives, and I recently had this lesson come back to me in a powerful way. I was sitting in my meditation practice, and I was feeling strong urges to get things done. My mind kept wandering to things I wanted to get done, and physically, I felt like my body was a firework about to explode. Sitting still felt out of line with everything my body wanted to do in that moment.

About midway through my practice, the lyrics popped into my head:

“This could be Heaven or this could be Hell.”

And with that thought, my body softened and my mind settled. I wasn’t going to cut my practice short to try and get more things done, so I could either sit and agonize over not being able to do other things in this moment or I could meet myself where I had committed to be.

Recalling the song lyrics reminded me that there was choice in this moment. There are many things that I can’t control, but my thoughts are not one of those things. It was completely within my power to engage differently with this experience, and so I did.

I accepted that I wasn’t going anywhere until my practice was complete. And, in accepting where I was, I found significantly more ease and even some enjoyment in the moment. I reconnected with my commitment to the practice and the powerful change it has facilitated in my life. I remembered that – for better or for worse – I chose this.

But life can throw things at us that are much more challenging than yoga. Things we didn’t choose. Things no one would choose. Things that are hard and heartbreaking.

It is still worth considering that there is wisdom in reflecting upon how we respond to things, but perhaps it might be better to say something along the lines of:

“This could be [hard and heartbreaking] or this could be Hell.”

This experience could be a challenging one that pushes me beyond what I thought were my limits, or it could be a horrible catastrophe that I can’t see myself moving through. We are not born with a fixed amount of resilience. We can improve our ability to cope. The ego may not love the idea that we could make changes to bring more ease into our challenging experiences, but paradoxically, we tend to feel rather proud of ourselves when we do.

A Mother’s March

by Sarah Yoga
https://www.flickr.com/photos/9602574@N02/32409710246
Photo by Mark Dixon

 
I took my 16-month-old daughter to the Women’s March today.

When my husband picked us up at the skytrain station, he said to me, “Are you okay?”

My response was: “I just feel like crying.”

It was exhausting, surprisingly exhausting. It wasn’t just about getting down to the march with a stroller and a baby and all the baby paraphernalia. And it wasn’t just about the two pee soaked pairs of pants and the diaper change on the floor in a random building. It was this: today, one day after the US presidential inauguration, I felt a profound sadness for my daughter.

I don’t want to take anything away from the hope inspired by so many people coming together, but it breaks my heart to feel a palpable sense of regression around the rights afforded to women. I feel sick to my stomach when I think about many of the things that have been in the news since my daughter was born: that a man can rape a woman and then, with regard to the length of his sentencing, have people say, “What about his swimming career?”, that a presidential candidate can be caught on tape saying, “And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab them by the p—y, you can do anything,” and still become president.

I am still unpacking and wrestling with my own beliefs that come from being raised in a patriarchy. How do I raise a daughter to challenge the prejudices I can’t see? How do I explain to her why it is important to fight for gender equality without making her feel like she is limited because of her gender? How do I teach her that men have been privileged in our culture but that men are not the opposition?

Through my yoga practice, I am learning to hold conflicting emotions and different stories. My daughter has been incredibly fortunate in her young life. She is truly blessed. I know this. I am deeply grateful.

In the past, the pain and heartache of this time would have consumed me. It would have pulled hope from my heart and left me feeling trampled upon by this cruel and unjust world. I would have lost track of the good stories and would have become an embodiment of sadness, anger, and despair, my world coloured by misogyny and sexism.

Today, I find myself able to feel the pain and see the beauty. I still don’t have the answers about how to raise my daughter in the midst of the messiness, but I have a hunch that teaching her to be able to see beauty while feeling pain will help.