By Prema Sankar

This is quite a personal journey and I am intending to write it in as detached and generic manner as possible so that I can myself look back and apply it in other situations in life.

I have read so many times about the mind+body+soul connection. Since I began my inner journey, I have been testing these theories on myself. I use Louise Hay’s ‘causes of symptoms’ to know (one of the Sites: http://alchemyofhealing.com/causes-of-symptoms-according-to-louise-hay/) the meta-level of the problem in the body.

For example in the case of coughs: A desire to bark at the world. “Listen to me!”

One time I might be suppressing the desire to shout out or scream at my workspace, another time at my parents or my partner, siblings, friends or myself! So this boarder picture from the website, gives lead to dig into the personal subliminal issue.

Knowing the Why? The cause. Why is something happening in my body or what is making it happen? And with these clues from the mind, body relation I have received an answer from within me always, whether I act on it or not is a different issue, but the body does give an answer.

One Saturday evening, I was planning to travel to begin something anew but then everything changed. I was suffering from intense back pain. Seeing me in pain a friend referred me to a local physiotherapist. He asked me many questions in order to try and figure out the trigger of the pain. We discussed all possibilities and then he mentioned stress. I plainly said ‘possible’ but at that point I knew precisely, I had invited all this upon me.

Stress — was I aware of it? Yes and No.

Reflecting on it, I saw there are two culprits. First is ofcourse me or rather the unaware me who let the mind surf the wave of negative thoughts and the other is the ‘outside entity’. By outside entity I mean social conditionings, social norms, societal pressures, well-wishers, family and friends.

I do not blame either of the culprits.

Someone might say or give an opinion, which might be true for them – however their opinion is coming from the same conditioning and they too do not know how to think outside the box. (This video helped a lot to get that insight: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AegLdB7UI4U)

So they might be talking to you out of real concern but they also come from the place where years have gone in grueling their minds to ‘this is right’ and’ that is wrong’.

If the first culprit had enough strength or awareness; it would have stayed really untouched by the second, when I think of it. However I tell myself that I have just started unlearning the years of learning and realizing there is “no right” and “no wrong”; it just IS and it is also a sadhana to keep reminding that to myself.

When something unexpected hits us, start rolling the dice from square one and get on with the game. Something I have been realizing over and over from the lessons I learn is that, it is not a fresh start – it is like weaving a new thread in the inner circle – so it seems like we are at the starting point but it is a new weave! So it is not a fall, it is in fact a step of progress.

Multiple things including STRESS caused this back ache — because of which I cannot anymore carry out any of my beautifully & mentally laid out plans – instead I am home bound and restricted like never before. I could easily get stressed again for all these obvious ailments and that would bring only more ‘dis-eases’. This vicious cycle or ‘the loop in a loop’ dawned on me and by Grace my mind just started spinning in a positive way (or may be it wasn’t the mind at all, by then the mind was out and something else took over).

The first day I was sad, dejected and had lost faith; well not really as I believe we never completely lose faith, and if we do then we cannot exist. Faith and Hope is what drives us. I started looking within, started looking for the strength inside me. I started being grateful for this time for myself.

I started my exercises and do it regularly and making that my meditation time. I would focus, concentrate and ‘just be’ while I exercised. The more I focused the better I felt, simultaneously I continued physiotherapy as well.

Being an active person, it is quite difficult to box all my vital energy and stay at home all the time.

As I am not yet The Dragon Warrior, I wasn’t finding the inner peace all the time. I saw myself having anger outbursts or frustrations or the ego strongly building up self-destructive thoughts and at those times I would make a self note and get out of the situation.

So here is how I am trying to manage my Sadhana in the midst of my “so called” situation: (I am choosing not to use the word problem – as anything is a problem only if we think it is a problem – otherwise it just is a life lesson or an experience or a situation)

• Meditating as many times (every 1.5hrs I try along with exercises. Some attempts succeed and others fail as mind is also not used to the calmness and peace.)
• Diary writing (this helps a lot; while writing down I feel many parts of me back out and a true voice comes out – sometimes I feel this as a conversation with my soul or with God or with my true inner self, though it is quite a task to be in that inner zone)
• Reading books that shut my mind and touch my soul
• Choosing to meet and talk only to those people that matter
• Self-Observation  (what I mean by this is I try and keep a part of me detached and just observe with no judgments, no corrections, no saying this is right or this is wrong nor do this or that. It is quite a task in itself)
• Kicking out any negative thought I catch (this is the toughest one)
• Some mornings I say affirmations. (I am still not sure how this works; but this is just an add on to whatever other physical medication. I feel good and happy after it just like listening to Music, so I do it. )
• Music that grounds me (all of us have some music which just lets us BE and nothing matters at that time)
• Nature.  Just getting out of the space and walking outside for fresh air and open feeling.

Now two-three weeks since the unbearable pain, I feel much better and confident that I will be healthy super soon. From where I could not sit up for two minutes – I could sit down to write this article.

Ending this note, hoping all of us find our inner peace through our Sadhana in such a way that nothing outside bothers us anymore.