Good Pain, Bad Pain

Back when I got my group fitness certification, I wrote a blog entry talking a little bit about the first two questions we supposedly ask ourselves when doing (or teaching) an exercise: 1) What is the purpose? and 2) Am I doing that effectively? I was struck at the time by how relevant these 2 questions became for me over time in looking at things I was doing in life, rather than just in my exercise. This morning I taught a yoga class and found myself considering the next two questions in the list and again generalizing them out: 3) Are there any safety concerns? and 4) Can I maintain proper alignment and form for the duration?

Today in class we were working on variations of Pigeon, including this version of One-legged King Pigeon. If you've read my earlier entries you know that Pigeon was much loathed by me for many years, and this variation is one that I still tend to avoid, partly out of fear and the memories of struggle it brings up, and partly because I have some tendinitis in my knees and this pose can create problems for me in my knees. This morning was a little questionable for me but I went ahead with it and, as I struggled to find the balance between working through the pose and staying safe, I watched my students struggle as well.

I remember all the times in various classes trying to learn to read this particular fine line, the difference between good pain, the struggle with something difficult that teaches you and your body something, and bad pain, when something is pushed too far and there's damage. It is hard enough to learn it simply as an aspect of the physical body when the struggle doesn't always feel good and the payoff seems too remote to be worthwhile and it's easy to give up, or, on the other hand, when we swallow the "no pain, no gain" philosophy hook, line and sinker and push ourselves on auto-pilot past any hope of real learning into injury.

But beyond that I followed my own line of thinking again out past the realm of physical exercise and into other parts of my life, difficult situations I've been in or relationships in crisis. My own reflex in those situations is to immediately withdraw, but then I usually second guess myself because I have this built-in belief that suffering is automatically good for the soul somehow and that if I stick it out, it will make me a better person. So I stay and I keep trying to make myself learn something, dammit!

This morning as I talked my students through the poses, offering suggestions for adaptations and occasionally suggested jettisoning the pose altogether in favor of something else, I realized that my internal questions about safety need to become part of how I approach all situations, and that sticking with something is not always the better part of valor. Sometimes suffering is part of life and it does help us grow if we can stay with it, and allow ourselves to work past it.
Other times we're better off letting it go and moving on to something else. As I frequently tell my students, if your knees are unhappy, they get the veto! If your lower back doesn't like something, your lower back wins! Those are pains that are not pains to work through. Tight hamstrings are one thing; damage to a joint something else entirely.

Likewise in life–if I am in a situation that is difficult and causing me pain, I need to ask myself if there are any safety concerns, not just physically, but emotionally: Am I putting myself in an unsafe situation where I might cause myself harm? Is the pain something that will build me up and make me stronger, or am I weakening myself somewhere fragile and important, where I will never recover? And can I hold my form and alignment for the duration, or, in other words, can I hold myself true to myself regardless of the emotional undercurrents or social eddies that may be pulling me out of shape or off course? Or will I be better to remove myself from the fray, perhaps to build my strength and knowledge so that the next time I try I will be able to say yes to the situation that tests me? Like learning to listen on the intuitive level to the body, learning the difference between good pain and bad pain in this larger context is difficult as well and there's no simple way to make it clear. But again, maybe just asking the questions over and over and paying attention to what comes from them will allow awareness to develop, creating balance over time.

copyright 2010 J. Autumn Needles