August 2, 2012 -- Something Momentous

So, I was talking to my yoga instructor Yvonne this morning about the big issue I'm having with writing my story.

I think that if I write my story, it might benefit some people.  It was my experience that living with chronic pain sort of took away my voice and I couldn't express what I was going through, which left people around me unable to understand and also, unable to offer help or comfort.  You've heard the expression "suffer like a dumb animal?"  That's how I felt.  Completely mute --the pain drowned out everything else.

Now I'm on the other side of that pain and I want to talk about how I got here, but I've been stumped by one thing: how I got off the couch.

Seriously, every journey begins with a first step, right? But I don't know what made me take that first step. What possessed me to go to that first yoga class? After three years--more or less--on the couch, why did taking a yoga class sound like a good idea?

I don't know. I honestly don't know. But I think about all of the people I know who are stuck on their own couches, metaphorically speaking, and I feel like if I could just tell them how I got up, maybe it would help THEM get up.

I've thought and thought and thought about this and...I got nothin'. I just...had no idea.

So I was talking to Yvonne about that this morning and she said, "You listened to that still, small voice inside of you."

I gaped at her.

"We all have this voice inside us that whispers guidance to us. When we don't listen to it, it gets quieter. When we DO listen to it, our lives get better." (I'm paraphrasing because I was so...gobsmacked that I couldn't store her actual words in my head.)

And there it was. There it was EXACTLY. That's EXACTLY what happened. I listened to that little voice and I went to yoga.

And then, because I listened, it got louder.

So, I went to acupuncture.

And it got louder. (Plus, my pain started to abate for hours at a time, so I could REALLY hear it.  Pain is really loud.)

So, I went off of my anti-depressants and gave up drinking alcohol and became a vegetarian and eventually vegan and lost a bunch of weight and lost ALL OF MY PAIN.

After each adjustment, I can hear that voice clearer. I feel like I have been stripping away the layers and filters and protective devices that don't really protect...trying to find my authentic self under all that somewhere. And here I am today, profoundly changed for the better, and still listening.

Still listening.

All of this goodness because one day I heard that little voice, like Horton heard the Who, and I listened.

What is your still, small voice trying to tell you today? Can you hear it?  Are you listening?


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Here's my daily Forearm Stand. Still don't quite have it, but I am so close.  Today I did a bunch in the middle of the room and made a slideshow, exactly like yesterday. You don't have to watch it.  You can actually just watch yesterday's, because this one is almost exactly the same.

The music is Patty Griffin's "I Don't Ever Give Up."  (Because I must have my little jokes.) (For those who asked, yesterday's music was "Fallin' For You" by Colbie Caillat, because Jane is her mama's daughter.)

So, after I failed a lot at holding my forearm stand in the middle of the room, I moved to the wall and used it to steady myself.  I was rewarded with this.  The great thing about doing it with the wall is...well, you know you can do it without the wall.