The Path to Grace Through Trauma
Maybe you’ve read one of my previous blogs about trauma and how there is a path to grace through that trauma. I shared that up until my long time boyfriend's death in late 2020, I really hadn't had much of anything that I would call traumatic happen to me. Well I found out through connections made through my journey experiences that my body had been through some significant trauma that I did not realize until 7 years after it happened. It’s a crazy but uplifting story of devotion, faith and the power of the mind. So I’d like to share it with you today. If you don’t know me, I'm a perpetual student of life, looking for every chance possible to become more conscious. I have some great tools that have made it a fascinating, humbling, profound experience so far. Tools like yoga, meditation, energy management, breathwork, chanting, crystals, cacao and more. If you wanna know more, let’s connect.
About 9 years ago, the weekend following Thanksgiving, I was traveling to attend an event with the hugging saint called Amma. She travels all over the world hugging people! Isn’t that amazing! And it is not an ordinary hug. I hope she will be able to continue embracing the world. This is the first year in many that she was not touring in the states due to covid. Anyway, I was driving 13 hours to get a hug and be in the unconditional love and high vibration her events are known for. I had made the same drive a couple of years before with a good friend and it didn’t seem too bad then. But I was driving alone this time and that always changes things.
Prior to leaving town I had psychically heard that I was going to have car trouble but I didn’t tell a soul because I didn’t want to have car trouble. I made sure everything about my car was in good order and headed out. Nonetheless I was ill at ease. That’s the only way I know to describe it. I don’t use my seatbelt very much. I know, I’m bad. But that day I put it on. To keep my mind focused I began to say mantras. For hours I was chanting mantras and driving. The traffic got heavier and it began to rain. I continued to chant. I was driving too fast and my car hydroplaned across four lanes of heavy traffic. I lightly connected with a car as I slid past and it turned my car sideways. I braced myself for a traffic sign to crash into my windshield and spray me with glass. My rearview mirror hit me in the head. Then I slid down an embankment and was slammed to a stop by a cement barrier. My car was facing the oncoming traffic getting onto the highway. As emergency services arrived I was told I could not get out of my car. I was petrified of going to the hospital so I explained that I was ok and did not need an ambulance. I was required to sign a release saying that and then finally allowed to get out of my car which was of course, demolished. The policeman told me to go sit in his car which I did. I was oddly calm but my mind was racing at the same time with a thousand questions. I did not seem to be injured in any noticeable way except for a few minor cuts. I contacted the Amma event to cancel my reservations. All I wanted to do was go home. As I rested in a hotel room that night and gave thanks that I was ok, I heard that I had received my darshan, my hug from Amma, during the accident. I believed she had protected me. Obviously I was sore and had a few cuts but I rented a car and drove home the next day.
When I got home, I sat down in front of my altar to again give thanks and also to focus on what I wanted to happen next. I wrote on a piece of paper how I wanted things to happen with my car and that the finances I needed would easily show up. I was a single mom with two boys and no financial support from my ex. My body was how I made my living, teaching yoga and working with energies and I couldn’t afford to be out of work. So I simply picked up where I left off. I prayed with and sent energy to what I had written on the paper. Within 2 months, everything on that paper happened exactly as I had written it. I fully trusted that I had been protected and just went on with my life.
A number of months later, I arranged to receive an Ayurveda treatment called Pancha Karma at the ashram where I had received my yoga certification. It was not the first time I had received this treatment so I knew what to expect. But my body seemed different. I remember taking a very gentle hatha yoga class and not being able to comfortably do the simplest back bends and just thinking it was due to some toxicity that was being cleared by my treatments. I carried on but I became increasingly aware that something in my body had changed. I didn’t know what. And I know it's almost unbelievable but I never considered that I had been injured in the car accident. I believed and trusted that Amma had protected me.
Time marched on. I slept on the floor for two years, literally. It was a yearly practice for me, during a 10 day festival called Navaratri but it felt really good, for obvious reasons I now know, and I extended it for two years. I continued to practice asana and also to be aware that something had changed in my body. Certain things that I had been able to do my whole practice I struggled with now. A voice inside my head said well you know you are getting older. Our society and culture plants this idea in our heads about what it is like to grow older. It is often seen as a very limiting time of not being able to do this or that often for no other reason than the proverbial I’m too old for that. I was not one who put a lot of stock in this kind of thinking. I viewed age as a number. I didn’t like the restrictions that seemed to go along with aging. Or the dismissive nature of our society towards it’s older population especially women. But some part of me had drank that kool aid and I began to accept that even though I was doing my practices and eating right, my body just was not able to do certain things any more.
More time passed. I met a talented chiropractor that was working with my son. I had always believed in chiropractic and had been receiving regular care at least once a month during this whole time. I also regularly got a massage so I was definitely taking good care of my body. I told this chiropractor about some sensations I had been having in my back and he said oh, you mean your back is numb? Well I had never used or considered that word in relation to what I was feeling and found the idea that my back was numb totally unacceptable. He sent me for some x-rays. I brought the cd with my x-rays back over to his office. He pulled them up and looked at it and said were you in an accident? I said yes. He showed me on the x-ray where I had fractured my spine. I was overcome with emotion. I did have a knot on my back. My low back had also suffered a compression fracture. He was so amazing and gentle and I began to receive adjustments and other therapy 3 times a week.
I very slowly began to integrate the reality of what my body had been through and honestly, how well it had handled it. Some people do not walk again after the injury I had but I didn’t have the framework of having broken my back so I instinctively did a lot of things that were really good for the kind of injury I had. Had I gone to the hospital, the suggestion would most likely have been to put screws or a rod in my back to support it while it healed. I remain very grateful that I both did not go to the hospital and on some level, did not know what had happened. I followed my instincts, adjusted my practice and maintained flexibility and movement in my spine. As I also began to go back and look at and reprocess what had happened I realized I could let go of the idea that I had to accept what my body was going through as some kind of inevitability of aging. So many things made sense now as I committed the time my body and soul needed and deserved to get some much needed care. I allowed my body to feel what had happened. My chiropractor had a great way of explaining how the body adjusts optimally to the circumstances it is in, that nothing was wrong, that the body had responded appropriately for what it was experiencing. I received excellent care. My body began to realign and restructure itself. I’m two years into this ongoing process and am blown away at how much my body has and is changing. The numbness is gone for the most part and a more structurally sound alignment has reverberated throughout my body and life. My own understanding of and relationship with my body has been enhanced beyond measure. Not in an attached to the body kind of way but in a grateful for the faithful servant the body has been kind of way. One thing we all need to understand is that as our consciousness expands and we become more aware, the body has to catch up and also go through an evolutionary process. If the mind changes so must the body.
A number of essential realizations have resulted from all of this. You’ve heard me say it before but here it comes again. Yoga is the bomb! It has saved my life too many times to count. It has tirelessly demonstrated it’s wisdom, power, and compassion for what I signed up for and supported me when nothing and no one else did. Clearly yoga had prepared me well for the trauma my body went through. This experience has served to reignite my passion for this most incredible path of peace and freedom. The truth is, I was in a place of doubt about whether I would continue to express myself through yoga when all this was revealed. But not now! And my desire to share it with others has skyrocketed because I know in a whole new way how much it has to offer and that it is only dependent upon your commitment to the practices. But I am ready to share it in some new ways. So much of what I just naturally did was exactly what my body needed. And gratefully I listened to my intuition and made adjustments that allowed my body to stabilize and heal. The knot that I had on my spine is still there but much smaller and I am back on the mat with as strong a practice as I’ve ever had!
The most humbling and deeply beautiful realization that surfaced was about the devotion and faith I had in one of my teachers, Amma, and therefore in the yogic path. I believed she protected me. And the strength and power of that belief did in fact protect me. Who do you know that has broken their back and didn’t know it! It’s bizarre. But it clearly demonstrates the power of the mind and the power of faith and devotion. I didn't know I had that kind of devotion and faith. And this has served only to increase that and allow it to blossom in a whole new way. Along with that is my deep deep gratitude for everything. I see how perfect it all is. As I mentioned in an earlier blog, there is a path through the trauma to unimaginable grace. Allowing myself to accept the faith and devotion my practices had naturally created, just as they are designed to, has been one of the most beautiful experiences of my life.
I know many have been through trauma to their body and I pray that many discovered the kind of faith and devotion I did through that trauma. If you forgot to look for it, it's ok you can go back and look any time you like. If you’re still in the thick of it, pause and look for a perspective that supports your healing, growth, and release from karma because everything is nothing more than that. I hope my story gave you hope or uplifted you or just made you think. Grace is there. Look and you will find it.