How about pain in your left foot as you try to get into your yoga practice first thing in the morning? How about pain that radiates from the middle toe of your left foot, slowly shooting up your left shin as you try hard to focus on breathing and balancing?
That’s what happened to me this Wednesday morning less than five minutes after I began my Ashtanga yoga practice. The pain wasn’t unbearable, it was simply loud and annoying. Loud like pouring rain. Loud like a ringing bell. Loud enough that it not only got my attention to stop, it got me thinking harder about – my toe that got on my nerves, and broke my flow! I succumbed to it. Urgh…
What’s the Matter?
”What’s the matter? It is just a toe!” I muttered to myself.
This tiny stubby shortie middle toe had been black and blue since I accidentally slammed my left foot into the base of my sofa the previous weekend. I’d put arnica cream around it and massaged it gently even as it hurt. Then, I forgot about it.
Where is the Mind?
Since I’d completely forgotten about my toe injury, I resumed yoga practice Monday morning and was feeling pretty good that I’d cruised through thirty minutes of Ashtanga yoga moves without any pain until I sat down on the mat. With my legs stretched out straight in front of me, I was to bend over to reach for my feet with both hands, one grabbing the other wrist. As I bent, I began to feel the nerve sensation seeping through the sole of my left foot. Almost immediately, a bundle of nerves clustered together, pushing my big toe over to fasten itself over the middle-toe! It was a really bizarre sight. As if my big toe was a live creature leaning over to offer comfort over that middle-toe. But what binds them together – was in fact – spasm! It took me a good long 5 minutes to shake it off. It took me the rest of the day to lift my mind off of it because that toe got on my nerves! And, my nerves got to my mind! So that was Monday. I decided that I’d better take a day off and resume yoga on Wednesday.
As I’d described earlier, less than five minutes into it, the nerve sensation came back. I felt it nagging at me, and caved to the memory of that Monday morning foot spasm. Andi, our yoga teacher noticed a pause in my practice, so she came over to check on me.
Mind Over Matter?
“You can isolate that left foot by doing this with your chaturanga.” she said.
Andi showed me how to place my left heel over my right as I engaged this pose.
“Easy for you… you’re not the one with gripping pain in your toe!” I said to myself.
But to show an open mind and respect for her teaching, I tried it. The extra weight on my left foot over my right made it worse for me. It complicated and compromised my breathing. It did not work. It forced my mind to focus even more on why I was doing this.
I explained to her that I had a history of nerve injury, and my body had previously gone into a ball of tangled nerves whenever a movement triggered tension and misalignment of body parts. The truth is, I had suffered prominent nerve damage on my left side on the morning of September 11th 2001 when I was knocked to the ground during the stampede shortly after the South Tower collapsed. I didn’t tell her all that, but the trauma of that day constantly reminded me of my vulnerability.
Mind Over Matter?
“I tried. But the nerve sensation won’t go away. I want to avoid going into a spasm again, so let me just stop here.” I said to Andi. She nodded and said smilingly, “Yes, take care of yourself.”
We often say to someone who’s holding back from going overboard during a workout, or any physical or athletic activity – isolate the problem. Go around it. Get over it. Push your limit.
Or, if you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter. As the saying goes, mind over matter!
But, what if, the mind is the matter. What if, the body is the matter. What if both need room to heal? Can we pull back to make room for relief, so to restore and recover, so to reset and recharge?
As I have come to realize over more than ten years of yoga practice, the body is increasingly sharp and sensitive as a sensory intelligence machine to show me how to care for it. It sends signals – be it spasm in the toe, or radiating sensation through the leg, or a headache – to show me to slow down, to take a break, and to tend to it.
Becoming mindful of the body and its intelligent sensory system through our eyes, ear, nose, and mouth to pick up warning signs is especially crucial around this time of year when we’re all grappling with the onslaught of the Coronavirus, threatening to invade our immune system.
Tuning into one’s bodily sensation and deciding to receive warning signals as a guide for our mental or emotional response is a critical step towards protecting our overall health in the short run and in the long term.
As I write, I no longer feel disturbed by the nerve sensation from that toe after my morning yoga practice even as I notice it. It’s been one week. That middle toe in my left foot still gets on my nerves, but it does not distract nor does it annoy me. I’ve learned to live with it, nurse it and appreciate it as a process of healing. Let’s make room for healing, let it take its time.