"Was it the yoga?"

I have been confronted with this question NuMeRoUs times since relaying news of my injury and subsequent surgery. Certain friends, family members and co-workers, though well meaning for sure, assume that my practice injured me.

I will be honest. It makes me slightly defensive...shhh.

I am trying to understand and accept their concern with love and appreciation--for the most part, I do. BUT there is the smallest part of my mind that jumps into reaction mode.

Now, could an aggressive practice void of mindfulness lead to an injury? You better believe it and for that alone, I should recognize the legitimacy of their questions and concern. As I write this out, I better understand.

However, because I know me and my practice and my body personally, I know otherwise. As I wrote about in my previous post, I was not spiritually grounded in the way that I sought but I was NOT physically negligent.

My injury, I'm convinced, was a direct result of my witnessing a traumatic event, a terrible human tragedy. My body was gripped by sorrow and helplessness and shock and it manifested into a physical ailment--this 'knot', as it appeared, or hernia, as it is referred to, surfaced in my gut during the incident and the pain progressed from there.

Does my mind/emotion center wield that sort of power? Absolutely. And now, more than ever, I believe this to be true. When I think of that night, I still feel it in my gut directly above my incision.

If we only knew a fraction of the power we hold...hmmm.