I’ve been seemingly plagued with back injuries as a late, not really from practicing Ancient Thai Massage, but from my neglect of prior injuries that are coming out. It is easy to get used to people helping me (I work with really talented therapists) and getting attention for my problems, but it doesn’t solve them, it just makes me comfortable. Delving into my physical injuries usually takes me on a journey of the mind as well. It’s kind of like the dripping of the tap, it’s there in the background, dripping, waiting for someone to notice, and goes on unceasingly. The mind creates an emotional dissonance to get used to it, but then it can become the proverbial last straw, and the real life metaphor for all problems. We just need to pay attention to them and take the appropriate action.

My main issue is not my back or the prior injuries, but a procrastination because other tasks draw me in more than something I can live with. Later I discovered I can’t really live with the injury because it limits my capacity to grow in the direction that took me away from fixing it in the first place. Without a solid foundation we can never build higher without structural issues that arise later. The body is important to start with because we are bound to it. Anybody that says the body isn’t important is either in perfect health, or at such a high level in a meditation practice that the body is in perfect health because the energy is flowing well, unburdened by stress. The body is necessary to look after because it is our vehicle in corporeal form.

In Taoism the body is the small universe, and if we can’t even understand or look after a small version, how could we ever grow to understand or look after the large version.

So I’ve started doing the self-care exercises I was taught for the Ancient Thai Massage, and the Wudang 5 Animals Qigong at irregular intervals and in varying quantities depending on my energy level. My back problems have been subdued, my energy levels have increased, and my body feels more free than it has in over a year: all of this in 10 days. I’ve coasted on my training over the last 16 years and forgot I need to maintain because my body has always been able to adapt without effort. I’ve now put myself under a higher level of physical and mental stress and all the little problems are pronounced.

Ever since I moved back to Canada I lost my way to practice daily. It was as if I forgot everything I learned in Asia the minute I stepped off the plane. My brain has finally reactivated and I’m pushing myself to get into understanding and correcting habits that are preventing my body and mind from healing itself. I’ve access to states of being that allow for very old tendencies to be changed that up until now have been elusive. The more I choose to actively participate in my own healing, the more it becomes like a puzzle of trying to find the right state of being to unlock the old tendencies and unhealthy patterns so I can grow into something more than what I have ever allowed myself to be.

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