What Your Back Can Teach You

What Your Back Can Teach You.

BackPain

Photo By RedKoala1

Recently my back went out. It was a result of over use and deciding to sleep on the floor.

It’s been a challenging experience that is still affecting me 2 days later. Even as I type this, I feel woozy as the results of the muscle relaxers I am taking.

My mother encouraged me to look for the lessons in this experience. So here are four things I learned about myself when my back went out.

1.The Human Body is Frail.
My body is mostly reliable. However, whenever it stops working I remember that it is also frail.

I am always amazed how the body can do so many things. But it’s very easy to take this for granted.

It’s important to find a balance between activity and rest; challenge and recuperation; pressure and ease.

If we don’t respect this balance trouble ensues.

2. No Part of the Body is Dispensable
We tend to preference some parts of our body over others. Nevertheless, every piece of your body is important.

Everything in our bodies is integrated. If one part gets hurt, the other parts do more.

Respect every part of your body. You may not realize what you use it for until you can’t use it anymore.

3. Partnership and community –
We all want to think we are self-sufficient. As soon as you become ill or injured, you realize how foolish this is. If it weren’t for my partner and my friends at yoga school, I would’ve been in big trouble.

Developing healthy relationships and community is one of the most important things we can do to support our body and mind.

4. Universal Health Care
Every time I get sick or injured, I am reminded that we need universal health care. No one should ever have to think about the cost of going to get a serious medical condition checked out.

When I broke my arm and hand in a bicycle accident I didn’t go to the hospital for 3 days because I didn’t have good insurance. If you are hurt, you shouldn’t have to think about how insurance effects you. You should just be able to go to the hospital.

We need universal health care in this country. No one should have to delay treatment because they don’t have enough money.

A Learning Moment
Being sick of injured is hard. We realize how helpless we are in the face of impermanence. I didn’t enjoy getting hurt, but I try to get the lesson out of every situation.

Be grateful for health everyday, because you never know when it will be taken away.

MindFitMove Practice
-Reflect on a time you were injured.
-What did it help you realize about yourself and the people you care about?
-What could you do to help someone you know is suffering?
-Don’t wait until you’re sick; offer help to others who need it.
Offer gratitude in advance to those who would care for you if you got sick.

 

Do Stuff You Don’t Like

Do Stuff You Don’t LikePicture of Ship Wreck Door Hanger

I hate doing stuff I don’t like. I know BIG REVELATION, right?

I made a career out the pursuit of novelty and the art of avoiding challenges. I have a resume with over 30 jobs to prove it.
(Curious? I’ll list them all at the end of this post.)

My Life

Most of my life I have sought out the, illusive “cool job”

I always thought I was ahead of the game. I thought, “ If I’m willing to go anywhere to find happiness, I‘ll be happy.”

I would look around and find a cool job. I would purse it with vigor. I wouldn’t stop until I got it.

Once I got it, I would study it and break it down. I’d bask in the glory, because I had the coolest job in the world.

Damn You Impermanence
But, nothing lasts forever.

Inevitably, the novelty would wear off. Then I would be stuck in a job that was hard, that I didn’t care about, and that bored me to tears.

I went through this cycle repeatedly:
· Idea/Pursuit
· Acquisition
· Excitement/Love
· Stagnation
· Boredom/Frustration
· Abandonment

Eventually, I started to lose hope.

Maybe, there wasn’t a perfect job out there. Maybe, I didn’t have a calling in life. Maybe my life was pointless.

I kept looking for the perfect thing. Alas, the idea in my head never matched the reality on the ground.

One Important Thing
So, what did having all these jobs teach me?

No matter how many jobs you have, No matter how many times you change careers, you always have to do something you don’t like.

This lesson took me forever to learn. But, it taught me how I could work with doing things I don’t like.

KWITYERBELLYAKIN
This phrase is on a plaque in my childhood home. Translation? Quit your bellyaching!

This is the key to doing things we don’t like

As long as we bitch, moan, and complain about something, we can’t accept it. Complaining = Resisting, Resisting = Misery

When we accept:

  • We stop resisting.
  • We acknowledge a hard fact.
  • We set the intention to work with it.

I’m not suggesting you just give up and say, “OK, I’ll just keep the job I hate. Acceptance and discouraged surrender are not the same things.

Instead, we must accept that there will always be things we don’t like to do.

Great Wall

Border of Difficulty
Your border of difficulty lies at the edge of your resistance zone. Every time I do something that’s hard for me, my border of difficulty expands.

If I avoid what I don’t like my border of difficulty shrinks.

If I lived like this, by the time I’m my parent’s age I’ll be in a tiny box. My own resistance will surround me.

Choose Your Own Adventure
We have a choice. We can choose to resist and suffer and give into this cycle or we can choose to live our life.

We must embrace those hard things that make life better. We have to find what motivates us, when it’s no fun.

For me that thing is teaching, mindfulness, and fitness. Running my own business, I do things I don’t like all the time.

But I love working with people. I love helping people change their lives. So, for me it’s worth it.

MindFitMove Practice
Now it’s your turn.

Just answer this one question:

What makes or would make doing what you don’t like worth it?

Thanks for reading here is my job list (In reverse order):

  • 1. Founder of the Mindful Fitness Movement
  • 2. Political Phone Bank Manager
  • 3. Field Organizer for Political Campaign
  • 4. Enrichment Teacher At A Preschool
  • 5. Head of marketing at a Zen Monastery
  • 6. House Manager at a Mississippi Studios
  • 7. Ticket Taker Mississippi Studios
  • 8. Ski instructor at Timberline
  • 9. Merchandise Rep for Phil Vassar
  • 10. Merchandise Rep For Nashville Merch Company
  • 11.Business consultant
  • 12. Shipping Room Worker
  • 13. Stage Manager for the Gin Blossoms
  • 14. Guitar Tech For the Gin Blossoms
  • 15. Retail clerk,
  • 16. President of Indie Music Organization Start Up
  • 17. Manager of Artist Development Dist Company
  • 18. Rep for On Site Marketing firm
  • 19. Office Assistant
  • 20. Rep for Reggae Record Company
  • 21. Greenpeace Canvas Team Leader
  • 22. PIRG Canvasser
  • 23. Glass Art Salesman
  • 24. Paid High School Wrestling Coach
  • 25. White House Gift Shop Clerk
  • 26. Men’s Clothing Sales Rep
  • 27. Server at Joes Crab Shack
  • 28. Host At Romano’s Macaroni Grill
  • 29. Car Detailer
  • 30. Ran a Sumo Chicken Boxing Ring
  • 31. Baby sitter
  • 32. Bag Boy at Kroger
 

What’s so great about impermanence anyway?

IMPERMANENCE!

 
#BPlightrays
If you have practiced Buddhism or a few other eastern traditions at all you’ve heard about it, read about it, been admonished about it, and more. Even if you haven’t you have experienced it. The ever changing now, the subtle shift of the winds, the endless march of time, whatever your preferred referent it’s quite clear, all things are in a state of flux.

Often impermanence gets a bad wrap as the thing that takes whatever we love away from us, but from the right perspective impermanence is also what gives life’s it’s special significance.

The moments we cherish very often signify change.  A great example of this is the sunset. People all over the world admire and relish the colors, the shifting light, the change in noises, that the sunset brings. The sunset embodies a moment of change.

The sun moves all day long and maybe we notice the changing angles of light, the shift in temperature, but maybe we don’t. In the Northwest United States, for example, the shift of the sun often occurs behind a curtain of impenetrable grey.

The sun set (or sun rise) is a time when the movement demands our attention, often with a dramatic effect. It signals that this day is ending, that even the huge forces that seem so stable to us are shifting in front of our very eyes.

If you’ve ever sat and watched a sunset you know this to be true. The sun a massive ball of plasma, falls beneath the horizon faster than you realized it could. It’s our attentiveness to this change that helps us see the beauty.

There are many other examples of beauty found this way in change, migrating birds, the opening of flowers, the first snow, the first spring shower, the first warm day of summer, and many more. These moments bring us into the present moment and show us that this flow of life is filled with an amazing vitality.

When I stand in the middle of one of these moments, I can feel my life sliding underneath me. Like that moment when the waves cross over one another at the beach. They seem like they are both coming out and going in all at once. This feeling is raw and scary, but it something I live to feel. It’s this feeling that makes me realize how precious each grain of my life truly is.

Take some time this week and reflect on something that you enjoy watching change. Think about how changes in the day, the seasons, even the people around you create beauty in your life.

Change is what enables us to become new people to learn new things. It keeps everyday fresh and unexpected. It only becomes a problem when we fear it.

Thanks for reading and Be Well,
Gentoku