When Little Injuries Teach Big Lessons

Have you ever had a little injury? We’re not talking crazy stuff here – no broken bones or major gashes. Just something little – pulled muscle, cranky shoulder, overstretched hip … These are often big enough to bug the heck out of us!

Little Injuries: A Case Study

You’re happily flopped over in pigeon, the sensations in your hip are intense, but you decide, “No, I want to push it further.” You lean further down. Ooch. “Past your edge!” your body shouts. You ignore it. Ooch. On the walk to your car, the side of your thigh still hurts. Ooch. What have you done?

A little injury!

In class the next day, everything is off. Your leg bugs you in all manner of poses. You experiment with “pushing through the pain,” only to feel something really sharp, unpleasant, and scary. By savasana all you can think is how you’ve probably ruined yourself for life; now you’ll never get to handstand; you can forget about your teacher training dreams! Is it ripped? Is it sprained? Are you just being a baby?

Bringing in the Big Guns

Annoyed and disgruntled, you pony up the big bucks and see a physiotherapist. Weak core and quads contributing to an unstable pelvis you say, Ms. Physio? Fine!

You grit your teeth and doggedly do the exercises prescribed, a shining vision in your mind of getting right back to where you were. No! Beyond! You will be a better, faster, crazier yogi than ever before!

The big day comes when you try another class. You start flowing with gusto, and guess what? It hasn’t worked! Forward bends – your favourite! – are killing you!

Wait. A breath. Another.

Where does this rigid idea of our practice come from? Might a little injury offer a golden opportunity to reflect on just that? Perhaps you have heard from your teachers that life’s only true constant is change. Might your little injury be shining a light on this concept? But you have hopes for your body, dreams for your body, this just doesn’t fit! It’s bringing you down! Might these just be thoughts, that, when mindfully observed, identify themselves as no more than classic human grasping?

Often a little injury can change us in big ways. Perhaps the advice to strengthen quads and hamstrings opens the door to poses we once thought were unattainable for our body. Perhaps the forward bends that served us well for a time are no longer our body’s thing. Perhaps our practice has less to do with anything fixed, and much more to do with the type of close, compassionate observation a little injury requires of us.