My 44th birthday started with a lovely wake-up kiss from my husband. As I rolled over to receive a hug, I felt a sharp twinge under my right shoulder blade. Within a half hour, the twinge escalated to an ever-present ache which would oscillate between a dull throb and a breath-stealing pain. I did what I could with stretching and a hot water bottle to relieve the pain, but it persisted. I felt frustrated, disappointed, and angry because I had reserved the day to exchange yoga therapy sessions something I had not done for myself in years! My body was giving my clear signals that I could not give a session, but maybe, just maybe, could I be open to the possibility of simply receiving one? When I called to speak my truth about my predicament, Kirsten was more than willing to adjust our plans.
As I lay back to receive, I realized that the quality and quantity of the ache had transformed. Rather than being annoyed at the pain, doing my best to either fight it or make it go away, I was now lying back and bringing my curious awareness to it… allowing it to be… wondering about it. And in that moment, I opened to the contrast between my right achy and left silent sides of my body. Surprisingly, my right side felt relaxed, grounded and open despite the occasional twinge, while my left side felt like an over-inflated air mattress… forced into tense rigidity by too much. My left side felt old, artificially propped up… while my right side felt new and fluid. And insight blossomed.
These past 6 months, since discovering a tender, hard spot in my left breast (diagnosed as a benign cyst), followed by the diagnosis of my husband’s leukemia, followed by euthanizing my beloved dog, have been a dedicated expedition for me… a spiritual expedition to overcome my addiction to living my life exhausted and overwhelmed… a quest to discover an open, easeful, flowing way of being in my mind, body and spirit. I’ve titled this expedition “Say Yes to Me”. While I have been very aware of light-speed growth in mind and spirit, this ache today brought my awareness to those parts of my body that had made the shift and those parts that still need help to shift. The pain actually arose from the newness of being… growing pains, if you will. Had I chosen to follow my preferred strategy of “tensing to block it; ignoring it; or numbing myself from it”, I would have lost the chance to reflect on how far I’ve come… to savor where I am now… on my birthday, no less!
At one point, Kirsten lifted me into supported Cobra. Normally, Cobra challenges my lower back which limits my range of movement, but with support, I have a completely different experience of this pose. My arms were extended behind me, grasping hers offered in support, my back deeply bowed, my chest lifted and facing forward… I felt like I was soaring. And in that moment, I had a full-being experience of the metaphysical aspect of Cobra: “I arise effortlessly to face life’s challenges.” And the reality is that each time I choose to reach out and grasp the support that surrounds me in my daily life, I am able to soar… I am able to arise effortlessly to face life. Immense gratitude poured through me as I connected with a whole-body experience of the lightness that I have been experiencing recently throughout my personal and professional life.
The ache stayed with me throughout the day… occasionally lapsing to silence… emerging whenever I would try to WORK. So I chose to spend the day doing things I normally don’t do in the middle of the week. Oh, the wondrous ways my Spirit coaxes me to step out of my self-imposed cage of expectations!
And when I woke up the next morning, the ache was gone. Quite a memorable birthday present if you ask me!
After 15 years in corporate finance and now as an entrepreneur growing a mind-body wellness service, Meenal K Kelkar, MBA, CYT, CPRYT, CTYT has personal experience with how difficult it can be to quiet an active mind. To incorporate meditation into a busy lifestyle, she has developed Mpowerment Meditations, a set of tools that are pragmatic, practical and accessible. Meenal is certified with over 1,000 hours of training in yoga therapy, a rapidly growing field where therapeutic yogic techniques and concepts are applied to the modern lifestyle to support clients in their movement towards wellness.
Meenal serves on the advisory board of the Camarillo Health Care District’s Healthy Attitudes, and teaches throughout Ventura County, California. She has helped corporate clients introduce Mpowerment Meditation tools into employee wellness programs and the corporate strategic planning process. Meenal is a regular contributor to Healthy Attitudes magazine and most recently, Green Home and Family magazine.