dealing with injury

Last week I injured myself...again. I have a feeling it's not uncommon, but I've injured the same area several times over the past three years.
Unfortunately, since I'm usually focusing on the breath or deeply into my practice, I hardly notice anything is wrong until the next day when I can barely walk. However, I must say it is always a learning experience, and the great thing about injuries is that they slow you down and bring you to a place of deeper awareness and appreciation about your body.
A few of my tips:
- Don't fight it. The urge to push through an injury, or not take rest, may be strong, but it will only hurt your chances of recovery. Give your body the attention and care it needs and it will heal much faster.
- Seek out experts. I had to misalign my hip a few times before my chiropractor diagnosed it correctly. (Others had said a strained tendon, overuse of the hip, etc.) But using the care and expertise of chiropractic, acupuncture and other healing modalities, the injury has healed faster and my body is also able to better deal with the stress of injury.
- Learn from the injury. There is always a hidden message. I've had to slow my life down, pay more attention to the present, discover other types of yoga practice, become more compassionate and patient, and have developed increased awareness and appreciation for my body all because of injuries. I believe the more receptive we are to receiving this hidden message, the easier the time of recovery will be.

"Practice and all is coming" - Shri K. Pattabhi Jois

Last week there was one thing after another and I didn't fit in as much asana (physical practice/yoga postures) in as I would have liked. Fortunately, I was able to squeeze in a minimal amount of meditation and pranayama (breath control). But still, this week as I started to do my full practice (and at least complete my full "minimum" series), I could see why persistence is simply the biggest factor in all kinds of success.

We all know the story of the tortoise and the hare, but it can be so easy at times to think that just because this time all is going great it will always be that way going forward. I believe that with age we begin to realize that this type of thinking - the notion that we can "skip steps" - will lead to a bigger fall or setback quite soon. And this is why I believe the yogis also greatly emphasize "non-attachment" or in the words of Dharma Mittra, "Renounce the fruit of your actions." This way we can simply offer whatever happens up to a higher power, and we won't feel affected by the rise and fall of life as it takes place around us.