Sunday Morning - “Patience”
Good morning & I truly hope it is a good one!
I just got finished using my foam roller. You must all try one if you haven’t yet – best thing since the exercise ball! I have been using mine almost everyday for the past couple of months. Why I had never used it that much before is because I stretch all the time and didn’t think I needed too. But what I didn’t know was that where I felt the tightness, was not the core of my problem. If you do not know where your problem area is, how can you fix it and better yet, quickly???
In ’85 right before my black belt test, my lower back went out and a physical therapist in my school offered to help me heal and get ready for my test. I had no idea what I was in for but I learned a lot about my body and bodies in general during those 3 months. The most important thing I remember is that of patience being omnipotent. My friend would find a place in my back that was out, tight or needed re-alignment and as he applied pressure he would explain that a signal was being sent to the brain and in order to reverse that message, to one that was to: relax, let go or release, it would take time. So he would have to hold and sustain the pressure and I would have to take it. He would ask that I breathe into the pain and try to relax as difficult as that was to do. Over that time of my pain threshold being tested, I learned that if I focused on the pain, it made it worse and the time he held it seemed like forever. If I focused on breathing, trying to stay calm and did my best not to think about it, the time went by much faster and the muscles seemed to relax much faster as well.
I discovered that when using the foam roller, if I lay back over the roller in one position, hold it and then move a few inches and hold again (baby steps) it allows specific muscles (challenge in life) in my hip and back to “release” (receive the answer) which is the same principle I discovered 25 years ago.
Answers to life’s questions can take time, sometimes while we are uncomfortably/impatiently waiting, not understanding why or how much longer. Maybe the clarity that while we are waiting we are changing, letting go, releasing things, thoughts, fears that it simply takes time to do. Maybe that knowledge will assist us in staying patient, calm and simply breathing in the moments until they pass…
- tjd
”But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience”
Romans 8:25
peace & God bless in two thousand & zen
