On healing old wounds

I once stepped on a small piece of glass that got lodged inside my right heel. It was so small that at first I didn't see it still stuck in my flesh, and I had thought that the stinging sensation I kept feeling was because my flesh got pricked and it was healing.

After 4 days, the skin over the wound had closed, and yet, I was still feeling a sensitivity everytime I put pressure in that area of my heel. The soreness was dull enough that I could ignore it most of the time, but I also found myself babying my right heel and walking with a slight gait to avoid putting too much pressure. I noticed my entire body becoming tense, rigid, contracted when I had to put my heel down as I went down the stairs. 

Though on surface level, everything appeared fine, but the wound itself hadn’t really healed yet. A glass piece must still be lodged in there, and I decided I needed to do something about it. 

I enlisted the help of my husband for the "operation." The wound wasn't deep, really, just skin level. The skin that had closed over was a very thin layer, so he was easily able to re-open that skin layer. Indeed, a tiny shard of glass was in there. Using a flame-sanitized sewing needle and the flashlight from his phone, my husband carefully excavated that sneaky little glass piece.

Within a day, the wound healed, and I was on my merry way.

I'm telling you this story not for entertainment nor to make you squeamish (and if I did, I apologize!). The moral of the story is that we all have emotional wounds that seem to have healed on the surface, and yet we continue to protect ourselves in ways that suggest otherwise. 

These wounds are emotions and stress that didn’t get to play out their part. They got stifled, suppressed, or shamed, because it might not have been safe for us to express them in the environment we were in, or around the people we were with. 

The glass pieces remain lodged. 

The skin healed over the punctures, and on the outside we might appear fine, and we’re able to function quite well, until…something triggers the wound and makes us feel the sting of the glass pieces.

“Trauma keeps us stuck in the past, robbing us of the present moment’s riches, limiting us from who we can be.”

— Gabor Mate, in "The Myth of Normal"

This metaphor of the glass pieces remaining hidden under our skin and flesh, is like the trauma we hold in our bodies and psyches from both bad things that happened to us, OR from the lack of good things (i.e., lack of affection, emotion, and nurture from a parent). 

In The Myth of Normal, Canadian physician Gabor Mate describes that these wounds can develop scar tissues that become rigid, inflexible, numb, with a lack of connection of communication, and unable to grow. The scar tissues that try to protect also inhibit our movement and our ways of thinking to a point that we become stuck. They become a constriction of self, both physical and psychological, and constrain our inborn capacity to live and thrive in this world, to show up as our best.

In his words: “Trauma keeps us stuck in the past, robbing us of the present moment’s riches, limiting us from who we can be.”

Though the glass was lodged shallowly in my heel, I was terrified of our little home operation. I am so squeamish about pain. 

And so, it will most likely be absolutely terrifying to shine that spotlight on our wound(s), and even more so to excavate. 

But it must be done if we are to heal. 

Yoga heals, but oftentimes not in a blissful, comfortable way

Many believe yoga is supposed to make us feel good -- to become more relaxed and less stressed. While that is true on a surface level, the real work of yoga is a revealing of hidden truths, and not all of these truths are comfortable to bear witness or relive through.

“Yoga is that excavation process which is terrifying but also needed for healing to begin and progress.”

They might be old suppressed memories, unresolved emotions, and stored survival stress responses.

We, once upon a time, had to bandage these truths that wounded us so that we can move on to survive.

At some point, however, we need to reveal these bandaged wounds, take deeper looks into them, so that we can one day free ourselves from the stings and restrictions these hidden painful truths reveal.

Yoga is that excavation process which is terrifying but also needed for healing to begin and progress.

As you explore the various yoga postures and guided meditations, there will inevitably be latent memories and emotions that surface. They may bring up emotions of grief, anger, sadness, frustration, and pain.

I am here to guide you through this journey as your body releases stored stress responses...as your body unravels the stories that have been held as pain and tension.

You may not discover, unravel, excavate, and resolve your wounds from years and decades past all in one go, but you can start. 

Provide self-nurture to heal

How? By giving yourself the grace and self-nurture that your body has been CALLING OUT to you for years, perhaps even decades. When the body feels safe enough, it will naturally start to shed the layers and reveal your old wounds. And because you’ve been working on giving yourself the utmost nurture, you WILL have the capacity to truly heal. 

So, I encourage you, dear reader, today and the following days after, repeat the following steps:

1. Sit or lie down in a comfortable and safe position.

2. Feel your feet on the floor, and if applicable, your hips on the surface you’re sitting on. Notice your entire physical body. Touch and hold yourself.

3. Notice your breathing, just as it is. No need to change it. Easeful in. Easeful out.

4. Ask yourself, to your heart, what can I do to nurture myself today?

I hope you give yourself all the nurture you deserve.