“Just for a moment, close your eyes and visualize yourself fully healed, completely free from this nagging back pain.” I was asking a student who has been suffering from chronic back pain for many, many years. She has been trying all kinds of treatment and is a sincere practitioner of yoga. Yet, progress has been frustratingly slow. She closed her eyes… just a few seconds… and shuddered ! “What is the thought?” “No, I don't think I want that to happen” she surprised herself when she said that. “Here I am trying everything under the sun to heal my back but I am also scared of healing?”
The fear of illness is one thing. We can sometimes get paranoid about falling seriously sick – ourselves or our loved ones. It happened to me and stayed for quite a while after I lost my sister very suddenly. But what about the fear of healing? How much are we aware of this strong pattern that then does not allow the body to open up to any form of treatment or therapy because the body does not feel “safe” to heal?
The Pattern of illness
It is true that illness, like everything else about ourself, can become a conditioning (Samskara). The longer we stay with it, the more deep rooted it becomes. And quite unconsciously and sometimes even consciously, we get so attached to this habit, of falling sick, being ill, wallowing in the pain, enjoying the attention and allowances people give us. Soon this becomes so “normal” that we forget what it is to be normal. As a child I remember we had a neighbour who suffered from arthritis. She would always sit in her verandah and get hold of anybody passing by and start complaining about her pain, and she will go on and on... I have never heard her talk about anything else. We then learnt to dodge her and quickly, quietly pass by without getting caught!
“If I am healed, it will mean I have to now live up to the expectations of my parents who have always pinned high hopes on me as a high achiever, until I fell sick. I don't think I want to be working so hard all the time, maybe that's why I am stuck with this pain for so long!”
I have been there and know exactly how addictive it can be! We begin to develop a whole lot of subsidiary patterns that hold the illness in place, make sure it gets more complicated to deal with. Even our relationships and our sense of self in relation to others, our work and the world at large gets substantially redefined.
Be aware when illness begins to re-shape your sense of self
For a long time I did not understand why I was getting reactive and irritated when people enquired after my health. Whether they said “you are not looking OK” or “you are looking just fine”, I would get equally irritated! What an interesting paradox? My sense of self was now struggling with 2 identities: “not looking OK”. “looking OK”. It is then I began to wonder what this is all about.
Though reactivity or defensiveness does not help healing or the relationship (we carry so much anger and bitterness because truly, the “other” can never fully understand what we are going through), when we recognize our resistance and defensiveness, we have hit the key to deeper healing.
Recognizing Resistance
The key to deeper healing With yoga, especially working with chronic issues, beyond the techniques and tools we need to be aware of the deeper patterns that are unwholesome and unproductive. Resistance to change is often the first red flag. Everytime I get defensive and say “you have no idea what I am going through” or ”I don't want your sympathy”, I address that pattern which traps our energy, vitality and motivation to heal. This helps get past stagnation and regression. Thus begins the process of reclaiming wholeness.
Reclaiming Wholeness
When I talk about healing, I am not referring to the conventional idea of getting rid of the symptoms of an illness. Healing is about moving towards wholeness. It is about delving deep to find the missing part – the fragmented part of myself – my ego. When I accept “feeling OK” and “not feeling OK” as two parts of the same self, and learn to embrace them, the division disappears, and wholeness is reclaimed. Then healing happens effortlessly with body and breath working in harmony.
The Harmonizing Tool
Yoga offers simple tools using the body and breath to facilitate this inner journey. Wherein the mind directs the action and remains an active witness, the breath guides awareness to deeper and subtler parts of our body, the battle-field of our fragmented self. When prana (vital energy) is infused, harmony is restored and toxins flushed out. The body and breath can harness the most powerful and intelligent resource - the Prana, to heal through calming the inner conflict and recognizing this wholeness.
Most often it is Fear that causes the defenses to come up.
“Fear is a very complex business, as ancient as the hills, ancient as humankind, and it has a very extraordinary story to tell. But you must know the art of listening to it, and there is great beauty in that listening. There is only listening and the story does not exist.”
- J Krishnamurthy, From The Whole Movement of Life is Learning
