One Step at a Time

It has been over four weeks since my surgery. I cannot believe that I have been hobbling around on one leg for over a month. With still a long haul in front of me, I am learning to not look ahead too often but to take one day at a time.

By far, the most profound lesson I have learned so far during this time is that there is a wonderful sense of peace in my life when I slow down and take one step at a time. At this point in my recovery, my work and family life almost resembles that of pre-surgery days. However, there are many obstacles in the way of my living at my pre-surgery pace. In other words, I have to slow down and show up for every step that I take or I might just find myself on the floor in a tangle of crutches.

In the past month, my life has been broken down into micro-movements. For example, when getting a glass of water, I must break my movements down as follows: Lean right, balance, reach for the glass, re-balance, reach for the faucet, fill the glass, steady yourself, now drink.

The crazy thing is that I find myself naming these small steps in my mind. Step down the stair, balance, crutches down, foot down, balance. This practice has helped me stay to present and focused during the most basic movements of life.

This mental exercise (which some may think borders on compulsive behavior!) has profoundly shifted my yoga practice and my teaching. One step at a time. One breath at a time. There is no rush. Move slowly and precisely.

One step at a time. One breath at a time. Slow and steady. That is mindfulness. And in mindfulness there is space. And in that space, we find peace.

Cara

My Left Foot - Part 3: The Wonderful Stationary Sequence

This morning I practiced yoga for the first time since my surgery. I used the template of our Stationary Sequence and modified poses according to what I could and could not do. It was down right fun. I used a stool for most of the standing poses and was able to move through most of the floor poses without too much fuss. Words cannot explain how tremendously wonderful it felt for me to move my body after two weeks of being literally “stationary”.

We often tell out students at Verge Power Yoga that there is a pose for everyone in our Stationary Sequence. Our teachers are more than happy to modify poses for our students prior to class or even during our classes.

We have students practicing at Verge with hip, knee and shoulder replacements. We have students with spinal fusions and chronic low back issues. We have students with rods, plates, screws and more! If you have been off your mat due to an injury or illness, please email me at cara@vergepoweryoga.com and I will personally help you modify the Stationary Sequence so that you can return to practice.

The beauty of the Stationary Sequence practice (or any practice for that matter) is that we can all be doing the same pose but at the same time, all look a bit different. Bottom line is that our yoga practice should serve us individually and based on what we bring into the center with us on any given day, i.e. headache, busy mind, tight hamstrings, etc.

My modified practice this morning served me in a big way. I felt cleansed physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. It was a perfect practice because I did the best that I could do with what was available to me today which is very different than where I was two weeks ago. I rested in savasana feeling grateful to be amongst the physically mobile population again.

I return to teaching tomorrow and cannot wait to see everyone. I’ll continue to practice at home for a few more days and then move my stool to Verge for classes there. . You’ll be seeing me “blissed out” in a modified pose in our Stationary classes by the end of the week.

Until then… Peace.

Cara

My Left Foot - Part 2: Learning to Listen

Our bodies are truly amazing instruments. And the healing process is flat out a phenomenal experience. I am 10 days out of surgery and, if I listen carefully, my body will tell me what and how much I can do on a day to day basis. And, what I am able to do right now is not a lot.

I can honestly say that I have just about surrendered to my body’s advice to rest a lot and drink a lot. I fully believe that our bodies need an abundance of rest in order to heal. I am learning that there is no substitution for quality rest and there are no short cuts.

The few times I have pushed myself by doing too much in the past ten days, I have paid the price with throbbing and pain in my left foot. I have learned the hard way that I cannot fool my body by squeezing in one more activity or one more phone call. In the past, I could ignore the physical signals that whispered to me when it was time to stop pushing. Right now, my body is in full charge and will scream at me when it is time to stop and rest. I think that I am actually learning to really listen to my body.

Listening is an incredibly important skill to develop. We are asked to listen in school, at work, to our kids, to our spouses. But do we really listen? I know that I don’t always listen when I should be. I think that I am listening but I’m really not. There are times during my yoga practice when I don’t listen to my body. There are times when I don’t listen to the teacher (yes, it is true). There are times when I don’t listen to my kids or my husband!

But now, due to this surgery, I’ve been forced to listen carefully. I will need to continue to listen carefully in order to facilitate healing. If I don’t listen, I feel physical pain. If I do listen, I let go and allow myself to rest and heal.

In many ways, this surgery has been a gift. I have a feeling that my improved listening skills will be one of the most special gifts of all.

Thank you for reading and listening to my story.

Peace. Cara

My Left Foot - Part 1: The Basics

Stability has been the mantra in my classes, on my yoga mat and in my life for over 5 years. You may have heard me say in class, “find physical stability before physical movement, seek mental stability before acting or reacting or sit in emotional stability before speaking.”

While I intend to practice stability in my life, I have been living with an unstable left foot for most of my adult years. Last Wednesday I had some repair work done on my shaky left foot. The procedure in layman’s terms is called a Corner Fusion. Simply put, my doctors screwed together a joint in the top of my foot that I had dislocated 25 years ago.

The injury occurred during a touch football game in high school. Juniors against the seniors I recall. As the running back, I cut right, grabbed the ball from the QB, cut left and ran for a touchdown! It was in the pivot that I dislocated the joint and experienced a common football injury called a Lisfranc Injury. Back then however, it was called a “bone bruise”. After a quick x-ray in the ER and I was sent on my merry way with a pair of crutches.

Over the past 24 years, however, I have injured and re-injured that left foot in different ways. There have been ligament tears, nerve issues and sprains. Balancing on that foot on my yoga mat has always presented a huge challenge and has helped me learn to be patient and compassionate.

In search for some answers to my stability issues, I found Dr. Nick Romansky of Healthmark Foot and Ankle Associates, a well known podiatrist to professional athletes including the US Soccer teams at the World Cup, Olympics and more. He and I went on a quest to find the reason behind the chronic pain in my foot.

Dr. Romansky told me that my yoga practice had kept me physically balanced to date but that as I age, I run the risk of knee and hip issues due to the misalignment and instability in the foundation of my body, my feet. Those words caught my attention.

After CT Scans, MRI’s, multiple x-rays and physical therapy, his team of doctors reached the diagnosis that I had dislocated a joint at the top of my left foot that day on the football field. Simply put, what should be the most stable joint in the foot, he said, was completely unstable. My “keystone” was unstable and was becoming increasingly unable to support my body in a balanced way.

That was all I needed to hear. I know from my own yoga experience and training that our stability begins in our feet, our foundation. If the foundation is weak there will be excess stress on the body and eventually, stuff will break down.

So on Wednesday, my foot became more stable with a lot of expertise and some screws. I will not be able to bear weight on my left foot for about two months. It will be one of the most challenging practices of my life. I look forward to this time being one of growth and evolution. I will share my challenges with you in this blog that I plan to update a few times per week.

So, be grateful for your healthy feet and for your stable foundation.

I hope to stay connected to you all thru this blog and with your comments. Please share. I’ll be back to teaching shortly after Thanksgiving.

Peace.

Cara

Fighting the Good Fight

I received my Quote of the Week yesterday from Andrew Cohen. He is a magnificent teacher and forward thinker. This quote gave me goose bumps and chills. Hope it does the same for you.

I highly recommend subscribing to his weekly email. www.andrewcohen.org

Cara


The Evolutionary Enlightenment Teachings of Andrew Cohen

I believe that any individual who has spiritually awakened in our time, to the degree that he or she finds a higher and deeper motive for living, is going to be driven to fight the good fight in one way or another. Whether it is through engaging with the struggle to evolve consciousness or fighting to save our world from climate change or nuclear war, the spiritual impulse cannot be separated from the moral compulsion to make the world a better place. And in order to fight the good fight, we have to engage, we have to get into the ring, not just stand outside it and be philosophers.

It takes guts and integrity of motive to fight the good fight. It takes a passionate interest in life itself. It's easy to stand on the sidelines, shaking your head and commenting on how tragic things are. But if you really care, you are going to be in the ring, trying to make the world a better place. And only from that position will your words and your thoughts and your insights have weight. When you live an engaged life, your sense of self gains depth and power and authority, and your philosophy is no longer abstract. You become a person who can really make a difference, because you are actively participating, you are digging deep, and you are pushing up against the edge of your own potential. ~Andrew Cohen

We Gathered Together

Yesterday was an extraordinary day for Philadelphians. Two million plus fans gathered together for a parade to honor the Phillie’s and their world championship. Another few million watched at home as a city gathered with a single intention and that was to CELEBRATE! And celebrate we did. We celebrated the long awaited championship of one of our professional sports teams. We celebrated the city of brotherly love. We celebrated being alive together on the most perfect October day.

I wasn’t at the parade but it didn’t matter. The celebration was everywhere and I felt the joy out in the suburbs. So did the many others that I encountered throughout the day. In the grocery store everyone was smiling. At the bank, we all seemed to be ready to strike up a conversation. Life was just easy and fun yesterday. In Philadelphia, for one day, we were more connected than we were separate. And that was a very good thing.

There were no incidents yesterday. There was no fighting. There was a beautiful sea of red and white joined together to gather and be grateful. I hope that the world was watching because yesterday we showed the world what is possible when we are more connected than we are separate. Yesterday there was pure joy in this city. And it was a very good thing.

Yesterday gave me a glimpse of our potential as a species when we unite for a common purpose. It is powerful and it is possible.

So I thank the Phillie’s for giving us a reason to unite and gather in a common intention. I thank the city for allowing us the space to gather. I thank all the fans for joining together regardless of race, religion or political affiliation. We were one Philadelphia yesterday and it was magic.

Peace.

Rest Your Mind

The concept of rest has been leading my practice and my teaching this past week. My intention has been to simply rest and to help my students find the space so that they can rest as well. There is something so comforting to me about the word rest. It seems to give me permission to slow down and shut down from the world even if just for an hour.

The need to rest our minds from overstimulation is now more important than ever. The media is in a frenzy barraging us with news of the financial markets and the election. On my mat last week I realized that I was feeling mentally and physically fatigued because I had been over dosing on news.

It was during that practice that I decided to just rest my mind. I felt an overwhelming desire to not do or think about anything. And so I did. During that practice, I let go of my need to perfectly execute each pose. I let go of having to go “deeper” in a pose. I let go of the alignment principles. I let go of everything and I rested. It was an incredible experience and is one that I have been able to duplicate over and over during the week.

After sensing my own overloaded mind, I then sensed this same syndrome in my classes. As a society, we have all been on an intense media high since early September and I think that we are all starting to feel the effects of the prolonged stimulation.

If you’ve been in one of my classes over the past week, you have probably heard me repeat the phrase, “Rest your mind on your breath”. It is such a relief to me to give myself permission to not think, not solve, not ponder anything at all!

There are so many decisions to make these days, that we truly exhaust ourselves by over-watching, over-listening and over-thinking. If you feel overloaded as I did a week ago, then I offer you this simple advice:

Try not to read or listen to the news more than once or twice per day.
Rest your minds in your cars by driving in silence.
Rest your minds at home by making a conscious decision as to when to watch the news
instead of having the buzz of the talking heads in your ears in a continuous steam.
Take 5 conscious breaths once every hour.
Get on your yoga mat and rest your minds while moving your bodies.

These practices have helped me get off the spinning wheel that I was on just a week ago. I hope that they will help you too.

I wish you a well deserved rest.

Peace.