We have all heard it before, but I am here to tell you there is so much truth to it. Movement truly is medicine in its most natural form.
For years and years I have struggled with the effects of fibromyalgia and I have learned the more I move, the less I hurt. Many people who live with fibromyalgia—me included—would probably rather lay on a heating bad and hope the exhausting pain goes away, but the reality is movement will in fact make you feel better.
When we live the yoga lifestyle and endure challenges like this it’s imperative to pull our awareness into the sutras, or principles that enhance how we show up in the world. For examples, living with truth means we listen to our bodies and only do what truthfully feels right. It’s about not stealing from ourselves by overdoing (or under doing) it and taking away from healing process. It’s also about non-harming and being intentional with what we say yes to.
Each day since coming home from the hospital I have made a deliberate and mindful choice to move my body. It may be that my six directions of the spine is my max, or a simpler morning sequence, or I might add onto my physical therapy exercises by grabbing my dumbbells for some upper body endorphins.
Besides the intentional ways to get movement, it’s so important to realize the simple everyday tasks that count towards movement! Think back to your first few days home from surgery, or when you were struggling with illness, and the small victories that came with making your own meal or even showering! I am so thrilled that I am not as exhausted showering and getting dressed as I was just a week ago.
All the ways we navigate our day also count as movement!
Showering and getting dressed
Preparing an easy meal
Walking to the mail box
Emptying the dishwasher
Doing a load of laundry
Making the bed
Walking around the yard
Tidying up your space
A short trip to the market
Of course deliberate and intentional movement is important, but during this recovery time be sure to pat yourself on the back for the small everyday tasks that require movement and congratulate yourself on a job well done. Try to incorporate the yoga principles into your daily life and opt for staying aligned with who you are, and not what you happen to be going through.
With over sixteen years experience, Stacie Wyatt is a E-500 hour Registered Yoga Teacher with Yoga Alliance, Certified Brain Injury Specialist, Certified Trauma Informed Coach, Life Wellness Coach, Senior YogaFit Instructor, Mind/Body Personal trainer, Stress Reduction and Meditation Instructor, Pilates Instructor, and Barre Instructor. Stacie is also certified in Integrative Movement Therapy™and is also a believer in the power and application of essential oils for health and wellness and proudly shares doTERRA essential oils.
How can we maintain our strength and equilibrium in the face of our greatest challenge?
When we are going through a health challenge it is so important to remember that mindful healing is a big part of the successful outcome we wish for.
Tips & Tricks to Mindful Healing
Each morning I sit and read something with the intent to be inspired or at the minimum give me something to ponder throughout the day. This morning I reached for my Yoga 365 book and today’s passage was so aligned with a video I created yesterday. In the video I talk about the mindful ways we can bring an added element to our healing process.
For me specifically with my recent hip surgery, I am implementing a few strategies that doctors do not necessarily tell you when you are faced with a major surgery. While I greatly appreciate the practical things that a person needs, it is the nuances of daily living that I believe go quite far in the healing process.
Our mindset will greatly influence our mental health during any sort of healing process, whether it is a surgery, an illness or a major life upheaval.
These six mindful healing tips are perfect for anyone:
Keeping a daily routine.
If you have always been a person who gets up and reads, or meditates, or journals, or prays, then keep doing that. Don’t sacrifice your spiritual practice because your physical body is working hard to improve. Also, if you are a person that gets up every day and puts a little makeup on, then keep doing that. Taking care of yourself and helping yourself to feel somewhat “normal” during this temporary healing time will do wonders for your happiness factor. Finally, getting dressed everyday and getting out of your pajamas (even if you wear comfy house clothes), the simple act of getting up and dressed everyday will send a message to your brain that you are in fact getting better. Plus, you’ll look better and when we look better, we have a tendency to feel better. I am a huge fan of lipstick and mascara and not a single day has passed that I don’t take the five minutes to make myself feel beautiful.
Develop a mindset of gratitude.
Each day I spend a few minutes in deep gratitude for the surgeon and for the implant in my body. Even though I still have a lot of pain and mobility is hard, I am mindful each day to thank my body for accepting this new joint and welcoming it into my body. I am grateful for my cells moving around my body to encourage healing. I am grateful for my strong muscles that are working hard to regain their strength to support the new joint. When we shift our mindset from a pain point to a gratitude point, our entire mental outlook can shift. Sure, it would be easy to sit in my 3 days worn pajamas and mope that my body hasn’t healed as fast as what others have, and I could complain that the surgery must have somehow gone wrong, and my immune system is overactive causing extra pain, OR I could embrace this new challenge through the lens of gratitude and be intentional about loving this new body part.
Speak kindly to yourself and others.
We have all heard that kindness is the path to a better world. Speaking kindly about yourself and to yourself during this time of vulnerability is so important. Falling into the trap of self-pity, or worse self-defeating language will only slow your progress. For the people who are helping you, they are doing their very best to make sure that you are healing and comfortable and if you are a person who is usually very self-sufficient, it can be emotionally draining on your family and friends to see you in a different way. Be kind and thank them for every small thing that they are now doing for you. We have a tendency to be hardest on ourselves and those closest to us so remembering to speak kindly will be a huge asset to you.
Setting up your space.
The doctor will likely give you a few tips to get your home ready for when you come home from surgery–things like remove loose area rugs, move items to waist level, get your medications refilled, have a grabber for picking up dropped items, etc. These are all great and much needed suggestions, however I found a few more things that have helped me feel better. I made sure that the items I use regularly like essential oils, diffusers, herbal teas, supplements, hand lotion, and other self care items are accessible. I created a space in my house specifically for this healing process where I have a comfy chair, a basket of healthy snacks, a stash of essential oils, books, my iPad, beautiful plants, and plenty of chargers within one room. This eliminates the constant need for someone to run get something for me AND it gives my space the homey and comfortable feel. Imagine trying to heal in a cold, dark, sterile, or dingy environment. Yuck. Make your space pretty and just what YOU like because you are gonna be there a while.
You have to have movement.
Any type of movement to get circulation going is so imperative. If you have had hip surgery like me, move your upper body. If you have had shoulder surgery, move your lower body. At the minimum move your spine in all six directions once a day. It literally takes five minutes and will increase circulation, get your chi moving and make you feel good which are all good things when it comes to healing. Movement is medicine.
Start a new hobby.
You might be thinking that a new hobby right now is too overwhelming but the distraction will shift your awareness from hurting to something productive and potentially fun. If you have never been a big reader, now is a great time to download your free library app and start borrowing books, or ask to borrow books from friends. Maybe you have always wanted to learn how to knit or crochet. YouTube is filled with tutorials and Amazon delivers yarn and crochet hooks. Perhaps you have been wanting to take up writing your own blog on a topic you are passionate about. I have enjoyed crocheting, jigsaw puzzles on my iPad, digital planning, and making sourdough anything. The joy factor is increases while I am doing those activities and my mind is less focused on hurting.
Mindful Healing
These are easy ways to maintain your strength and equilibrium while faced with one of the hardest things you may ever go through. Mindful healing is something you can do! By redirecting my thoughts, speaking kindly, wearing my favorite shade of lipstick and clean clothes everyday, easy movements, eating healthy organic cashews and sipping tea, AND feeding my brain with wholesome hobbies while being SO grateful, I am on my way!
As human beings we are likely to have had a few times in our life where we longed for the greener grass that others seem to have. We might even spend some of our time filled with envy wishing that our experience is different than it is and that others have it better than we do. Comparison is indeed the thief of joy.
When I was a young mom I spent way too many days comparing myself and my kids to others. It was exhausting and I broke free of all of that during my great wake up in my early thirties. I dropped the desire to compare myself with others long ago for the most part, however, major life events typically bring out our vulnerability and we might find ourselves once again looking at other people’s experience and comparing ourselves to them.
This old feeling of comparing myself started to come back lately when it comes to my recent hip replacement surgery. If I had a nickel for everyone who has told me that their 80 year old whoever was walking in a week without a cane I probably wouldn’t have to go back to work. Seriously…how is that useful? Or the stories of young athletes getting back to their sport within weeks. I get it…those miracles and amazing stories do happen and that is awesome, but not everyone has that experience.
When I hear these examples it is hard to not compare myself with them and it is something I am working on daily while also finding the opportunity to remind others who share their fast healing stories with me that it isn’s always that way for everyone, although I am thrilled for them.
Awareness is the key to cultivating true compassion but that is another day’s blog post.
Instead of comparing myself to those stories I have decided instead to look for small daily wins and remember that this is a marathon and not a sprint. It might be that showering without any help is my win. Or getting out to my yoga studio to record a session is a win. Maybe making a simple dinner is a win. Definitely the sourdough English muffins this week were a win. ?
If I spent my days comparing myself to others I would lose my joy in those small, yet huge wins.
My surgeon and physical therapist were great this week at reminding me that my experience is vastly different than most. The factors that go into my own healing are unique to me, so breathe and be patient. Also look for those small wins each day to carry me through until I am back in the “normal” swing of things. And, I am reminding myself that “normal” may look very different for me compared to pre-surgery.
It is natural for people to compare themselves with others. I want to encourage the world to stop doing that. Many times people even compare themselves with me. Instead, I try to ask them to look at their own gifts and be proud of them. We are all special in some way. While it may seem to some that I have myself all together, I really don’t. I work at it each and every day.
Find the joy in YOU and in your own small victories. Comparing yourself will definitely steal your joy and life is simply too short to live a joy-less life.
I have also learned that although the grass may appear greener, there is always some other species of “weeds” that have taken space in the seemingly green space and my own green is perfect for me, weeds and all.
Stacie believes that it is her life purpose to share the gift of Yoga with anyone who is willing to say yes. In addition to raising a family and being an advocate for those with disabilities, Stacie is founder of Embracing Spirit Yoga which specializes in bringing adaptive Yoga into community centers and rehabilitation clinics. Bringing her depth of compassion to the mat–or the chair–she offers students the opportunity to grow as an individual in all aspects of their life.
Through life we really are adapting to change constantly.
What initially may feel like a huge hurdle soon becomes a seamlessly easy routine.
I’ve experienced this so much in my adult life without ever really connecting the dots that I have indeed adapted to situations that initially felt so overwhelming. New jobs, divorce, selling a home, retirement, and illness are all examples of hurdles and yet, somehow, most of us endure them. In fact, many times we come out better on the other side. I see it clearly now.
The covid pandemic was a perfect example for me personally at this resiliency to adapt that I now believe we are all wired with, if we are open to it, and have the capacity to be somewhat flexible.
The world shut down and the places I was teaching yoga at closed their doors to visitors, and the major health club I was a regular fixture at closed. I had to switch gears quickly. After just two days of wondering how I would earn a living, I started offering virtual yoga through recorded sessions that I sent out to my followers and on social media. Within a week I had a YouTube channel and life soon became one of virtual yoga sessions and staring at my face for hours a day on a computer. My business model was to accept donations by trusting that those who could pay would, and those who were also faced with uncertainty, would simply use the videos to get through, and pay it forward somehow when they could.
I had great success and brought in an extraordinary amount of abundance during the lockdown.
Just like that. I adapted to change.
Many yoga teachers were in the same boat and many opted for perfectly curated videos with platforms to offer memberships, on demand payment and pay-for access type features. It seemed every week another platform was being marketed to sell your offerings. I never really wanted to “sell”, but rather I opted to give with an extended hand to receive, if that was in the heart of the giver. Maybe a naive business model and one I return to thinking about from time to time, but never can seem to switch to a “pay for my content” business model.
Just like that. I adapted to the change.
Once the world opened back up and my daughter was back to in-person day programming, I started to rethink how I would get my feet back into teaching yoga to those with neurological conditions and those living in settings that prohibit them from easily accessing yoga. I knew I didn’t want to be an online sensation and I felt I needed to be back serving my people. I do still love giving my YouTube channel a weekly recording. I have some amazing followers there and I also love my studio classes. The majority of my work remains to be my specialized yoga in assisted living settings.
The spring that the world reopened, I sat in a coffee shop doing a quick google search of “residential programming for adults with brain injuries near me”. I watched in awe as a modest list popped up. I emailed six agencies and by the end of the day, I had six contracts to begin teaching in their residential homes.
Just like that. I adapted to change.
I started the two days a week commute with sometimes 250 miles of driving round trip. At first, I felt this kind of driving would be grueling and perhaps even too much. I saw that much driving as crazy and wondered how I would do it, especially in the big city of Denver that I did not really know. People questioned my rational at driving so much for a 40 minute yoga session that I charged only $55 for. I let the naysayers say what they wanted but I forged on. Within a really short time the “long” commutes turned into enjoyable drives and it turned out to be really no big deal. I quickly learned the routes and found joy in not having to use my GPS as I remembered the streets. And within a short time I added another day and 26 more homes to the commute week, toppling out at over 50 different homes and teaching over 65 classes per month while sometimes driving anywhere from 800-1000 miles per week.
Just like that. I adapted to change.
Two weeks ago I had total hip replacement and once again was faced with having to adapt to some major changes, although these are likely temporary as I continue heal. Through the healing process however I am keenly aware at this concept of adapting.
The first few nights sleeping with the horrific stabilizing wedge was grueling and painful. Now, I *almost* look forward to the cozy feeling of being secured in place. I walk around my block and it feels like my usual 20,000 steps per day. I have swapped out my crazy schedule and cooking amazing meals at the end of the day for icing my hip, laying down to read midday and allowing others to serve me. My days have gone from 8-9 hours of work and commuting to studying sourdough recipes and how to up-level my busines for passive income. I have watched zillions of webinars, listened to podcasts, scoured Pinterest for recipes, and have done more jigsaw puzzles on my iPad than I’d like to admit. The days fly by and here I go again.
Just like that. I have adapted to change.
When I am healed up and back in action, there will again be a chance to adapt. Will I return to the same schedule? Is it possible I shift slightly to be more accessible online? Can I go from being a single person serving hundreds of people in-person to becoming a trainer of sorts for others to learn the method? Will it perhaps be a combination of all of that while still choosing time for sourdough and soulful hobbies?
Just like that. I know that I will adapt to change.
How many times in your life have you adapted to what seems like extremely hard changes? Take inventory of just how amazing you are as you reflect on the process you have demonstrated in some of your major life hurdles.
And just like that, you too have adapted to change.
I thought I had it all figured out when it came to anticipating changes and challenges.
I chose the word vulnerability for 2023 and I thought I was done with being exposed emotionally, having to ask for help and all that other stuff that is so hard for me. Leaving 2023 behind, I was feeling pretty good about my progress in learning to be a little more exposed and willing to ask and receive help.
Little did I know that it was all just practice for the BIG time vulnerability.
For 2024, I opted to work on being okay regardless of what was going on. To be neutral in the midst of chaos and to not waiver when life gets challenging. I want to practice equanimity.
One week ago I had total hip replacement. I opted to go into the process solo knowing that I would be required to have a lot of help at home. My intention while at the hospital for three days was focusing on me. I felt pretty confident going home that I had myself ready. Preparing my house for time spent mostly on one level that has a bathroom and space for me to relax, ice and heal was key. Making sure I had snacks, books, pillows and all the things I felt I would need to limit the constant asking people to get things. I thought I was set.
In many ways I was and am set. Having done seven orthopedic surgeries in seven years prior to this one, I felt fairly confident in my ability to navigate pain, crutches and living in a tri-level house.
I had lots of things however that I did not anticipate. You can read all the articles on what to expect but until you are in it, there really isn’t a true frame of reference. And I will say again, hearing that 80 year olds have this procedure all the time and do great is so not helpful. Part of the gift of living a Yoga lifestyle is learning to truly practice not comparing yourself to anyone, including the 80 year olds that have been sedentary and usually already dependent on others and who will continue to be sedentary and dependent on others. Not the super active, busy changing lives, walking machine like me.
Anticipation is a great thing, until you miss a few things.
What I didn’t anticipate was the fracture in my femur that occurred during installation of my new hip joint. This meant my weight bearing status would be different and the need for that to heal, along with my new hip, would be harder and slower. Adding in the greatest fear ever of dislocation that can occur with one wrong move, I am on hyper alert when it comes to movement.
I also didn’t anticipate the helplessness that would come with the precautions of a total hip replacement. No bending or sitting part a 90 degree bend, no crossing the legs, no twisting the leg or hip internally. So that means pulling up your pants, putting on socks, shaving your legs, reaching for a blanket, dropping your phone, scratching an itch, lifting your leg onto the bed, and so much more. For someone who gets it all done effortlessly this is an abrupt stop to my life.
The simplest of things seem like an ordeal.
Then the WEDGE. The surgeon is very adamant about post-op precautions, especially with a fracture, and sleeping is the craziest thing ever. Between my legs is a large foam wedge that I have secured with four velcro straps to prevent any internal rotation. I also have my blood clot prevention pumpers pushing air in and out around my legs all night. Add in the compression socks that are so tight and itchy. All of this means that I am basically on my back, secured into one position for the night that I cannot get in or out by myself.
Talk about vulnerability.
Lying in bed while I am completely immobilized is the purest of vulnerability. What an opportunity to sit with equanimity and be neutral in the midst of emotional and physical restraint.
I also had no idea the volume of pain I would experience with this. I knew of course there would be pain but the deep, stabbing and burning pain around the joint is unreal. The fracture adds to the pain and the swelling has taken my once toned and slim leg back two decades when I weighed 80 pounds more. Looking down at my leg and seeing the size of my thigh is startling, but it is also temporary.
I know that this week has brought me so much in the form of grace and letting go. It has also invited me to receive like I have never received in my life.
For now, I am icing, walking, resting, and working on allowing the vulnerability to flood my daily experience while also accepting the equanimity that brings a steadiness to me.
“Disappointment is a stepping stone to resilience. It toughens you up and prepares you for the challenges that lie ahead.” ~ Michelle Obama
Disappointment is such a strange thing. In my mind I know that all disappointments lead to some sort of lesson or growth, if we choose to look for it. It may be that we learn our own value, how to walk away, or even deep acceptance. Regardless of the lesson, it usually comes after experiencing some version of disappointment.
Most people already know of some pretty major disappointments that I’ve experienced in my life that have led me to greatness.
I’ve taken one of the biggest disappointments in my life and turned it in to my purpose and my passion.
What a lot of people don’t know is that for over 20 years I have struggled with the disappointment of my body. I have sat in pain management clinics for that duration trying spinal injections, varieties of medications, alternative methods, and eventually facing the pain with resiliency and movement. The disappointment fueled me to be stronger and stronger. It guided me to places I didn’t know I had in me. I faced the disappointment of many diagnosis with the fire to fight back.
The early weeks of January 2016 I experienced a new pain. A horrific pain. Within a few weeks I learned I had torn tissue in my hip. Three surgeries over the course of 18 months, and once again I am ten days away from yet another hip surgery.
I have needed this surgery for over a year but put it off last February because the timing wasn’t right. It’s right now.
In my preparation to get my body at its best form and fullest strength going into this big one. I have been consistently strength training five times a week for over two years. Refining my muscles and gaining strength and confidence has been empowering.
But, disappointment shows up again.
The familiar pain that grinds deeps into the lower back. That pain that prevents movement. Startling pain that makes my breath short and shallow. Pain that has brought me to the hospital twice unable to move in the past. The pain that makes my world shatter.
Not now. It can’t be now.
I need to be strong.
I need to be healthy.
I need to not hurt this much.
I need my back to settle down so I’m strong for my new hip and I need this disappointment to move along.
Or, is this disappointment inviting more resilience than I knew I had? Is it showing me what I have in me to face the challenge?
Maybe it’s both. I need to not hurt like this AND I need to be reminded of my strength and ability to overcome.
