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I suspect I've written this post before, but thinking about it again, so.
I'm beginning (in my mid-70's) to recognize that I do have to admit and deal with the aging process. Can't come up with the Jeopardy answers as quickly as I used to, don't heal as fast from small injuries, don't sleep quite as much at night, weight comes off more slowly (and we're not talking about what I see in the mirror!) Those are all so tiny, gradual, and unimportant (at least on the small level where I experience them) that I don't think about them much.
But the place where I do face the fact is in yoga. At one point I thought that I could always at least get back to the point where I'd once been, even if it took a lot of work--and for a long time I could. And maybe if I made yoga my whole life, I could get back to my best days of ten years ago. But why? It's more interesting, really, to learn about myself as I am, because sooner or later no matter how hard I work, I won't get back to that place. So one option is to mourn what I've lost, but another is to explore this new country as it keeps changing, and even try to develop some gratitude for something new to learn about.
And for sure, it's very much about learning! For example, the pains I felt in my shoulders. When they didn't go away, in spite of various rest periods, lots of anti-inlfammatories, heat and cold (all my usual remedies), I decided to investigate. This meant a visit to an orthopedist and an MRI and yet again, physical therapy. Consensus from doctor and therapist was that the pains in my shoulders were from micro-tears in the rotator cuff, which the therapist thought came from bad posture. I've always worked with that, and now I'm recognizing the genetic pull to stand the way my mother stood. Sometimes when I get up in the morning, I can feel my back pulling me in to that hunched position. The MRI on the other hand showed that I'm developing what I think of as spinal stenosis in my neck (although the diagnosis was vaguer: cervical spondylosis with myelopathy, which evidently basically means "something's not good in the neck."
And that has led to a lot more mindfulness in yoga, trying to be aware of exactly which positions and movements cause compression in my neck, which strengthen it, and what helps and hurts my shoulders. It's as though I'm looking at my body, especially in yoga, from a totally different perspective, no longer trying to reach some outcome, but noticing what the process is like, and learning what my body really is.
I'm also very grateful that I get to learn with a very good teacher who has actually worked up whole classes partly inspired by my needs (but then, most of my class is over 50, so maybe we all need it), and even more grateful that I'm learning in a gentle way. This would be so much less interesting if serious pain and disability were involved. Maybe it will help me if I ever have to face that, though.
I'm beginning (in my mid-70's) to recognize that I do have to admit and deal with the aging process. Can't come up with the Jeopardy answers as quickly as I used to, don't heal as fast from small injuries, don't sleep quite as much at night, weight comes off more slowly (and we're not talking about what I see in the mirror!) Those are all so tiny, gradual, and unimportant (at least on the small level where I experience them) that I don't think about them much.
But the place where I do face the fact is in yoga. At one point I thought that I could always at least get back to the point where I'd once been, even if it took a lot of work--and for a long time I could. And maybe if I made yoga my whole life, I could get back to my best days of ten years ago. But why? It's more interesting, really, to learn about myself as I am, because sooner or later no matter how hard I work, I won't get back to that place. So one option is to mourn what I've lost, but another is to explore this new country as it keeps changing, and even try to develop some gratitude for something new to learn about.
And for sure, it's very much about learning! For example, the pains I felt in my shoulders. When they didn't go away, in spite of various rest periods, lots of anti-inlfammatories, heat and cold (all my usual remedies), I decided to investigate. This meant a visit to an orthopedist and an MRI and yet again, physical therapy. Consensus from doctor and therapist was that the pains in my shoulders were from micro-tears in the rotator cuff, which the therapist thought came from bad posture. I've always worked with that, and now I'm recognizing the genetic pull to stand the way my mother stood. Sometimes when I get up in the morning, I can feel my back pulling me in to that hunched position. The MRI on the other hand showed that I'm developing what I think of as spinal stenosis in my neck (although the diagnosis was vaguer: cervical spondylosis with myelopathy, which evidently basically means "something's not good in the neck."
And that has led to a lot more mindfulness in yoga, trying to be aware of exactly which positions and movements cause compression in my neck, which strengthen it, and what helps and hurts my shoulders. It's as though I'm looking at my body, especially in yoga, from a totally different perspective, no longer trying to reach some outcome, but noticing what the process is like, and learning what my body really is.
I'm also very grateful that I get to learn with a very good teacher who has actually worked up whole classes partly inspired by my needs (but then, most of my class is over 50, so maybe we all need it), and even more grateful that I'm learning in a gentle way. This would be so much less interesting if serious pain and disability were involved. Maybe it will help me if I ever have to face that, though.