Rehabilitation

I began lifting weights in my basement as a kid. It was the summer between sixth and seventh grade and my track coach said it would help me run faster. I was all about running faster—this is where my fascination with fitness began. My brother was into Kung Fu so we both trained in the basement. Not in my recollection can I ever remember stopping to pay attention to how good my body felt from exercise. 

The word “rehabilitation” actually means to learn to live inside again (from the French habiter, which means to dwell, to inhabit). The Indo-European root is ghabe, meaning giving and receiving. I find these roots very poetic when viewing yoga as a form of rehabilitation. I now know why I never paid too much attention to my body until I began practicing yoga. I never focused on feeling sensations within my body—as an athlete I was mostly in my head thinking, thinking and thinking. Thinking about what was next, what to accomplish or what I could gain. That left no room for giving. 

Without giving there is no receiving—this is just a simple truth. I never received the information my body was trying to send me. I remember the exact moment when I first truly felt my body in a giving and receiving way. After that experience I said to myself, “What have I been missing?” Through the practice of yoga we can expand and deepen our sense of what it means to inhabit our body. We can learn to inhabit our body with a sense of awareness that can be healing and in many ways, life altering. 

Hatha Yoga (physical practice of Yoga) has taught me to pay attention to the senses. I now do this all the time. I do it at the gym, running, standing, driving my car; the list goes on and on. Yoga is something that for many of us is introduced through yoga postures, but this is just the beginning of the practice. Unfortunately for many, they never get beyond the physical postures. It is a way of living. It is a way of listening. It’s a way of giving and receiving the essence of life. 

The rehabilitation begins when you understand the giving and receiving relationship. The moment you start to draw your attention within and then receive the multitude of sensations that are arising and falling away, something very special happens. You experience no mind and the fascination and focus on thought begins to dissipate. You are no longer focused on analyzing, judging, and compartmentalizing. You are just being--this is the gateway to Being Empowered.