Arthritis Isn't Your Fault

Arthritis, it's not your fault. It is not your fault. You should really know that. There are so many leading factors that can come up into causing arthritis. You are but one small aspect of it, from the minute you were born.

So, what does arthritis mean? Arthro is the root of arthritis and it means joint. Itis means inflammation. So, it doesn't mean disease, it just means inflammation. So there are various types of arthritis.

Osteoarthritis is considered to be wear and tear and there's systemic. As far as I can tell it's all systemic anyway. There's no cure for arthritis. However, it's manageable and you can make it worse. It is progressive in that it continues.

It has this continuous life once it gets going. And it is manageable. So there are many ways to manage it and one way is quite so simple and so profound that we might easily forget it. And that is that any activity that you are doing that hurts a joint that's affected by arthritis is making it worse. So that kind of pain, no matter how small or large the movement is that you're making, needs to be changed.

How can I change the way I pick up a plate? Do I pick it up like this? And maybe it hurts my thumb or my elbow or my shoulder. Or do I scoop both hands under the plate and lift it up, bring it towards my body and move around? So that's just a simple example.

Many, many times a day you might notice that a joint that is arthritic in your body is feeling painful. Right now my knee hurts. I'm gonna change the position. So simple. So that requires becoming more sensitive to not like thinking oh, it's okay.

I'm just gonna stay here, buck up. Or I'm just gonna ignore it. It'll be fine. No, it's not healthy to do that for your joints. So you just shift your position.

That's how we can work with preventing things from progressing really rapidly and severely. That's one way. There are also ways to make it worse. Resisting change. Oh, I wanna be able to stay in this cross legged position.

It's resisting the change that's required. So, it's resisting sensation and perhaps the conclusion to what that sensation means. Pain, it's trying to give us a message. And this is true with any kind of resistance that we may have to mental, emotional feelings as well. It's so easy to get involved in mental and emotional resistance and that, I have noticed, makes my pain worse.

It's like, huh, I haven't done anything that should be causing my pain to get worse. Why is it getting worse? And the answer is usually, you're stressed out, honey. You're resisting the fact that you need to sit down and take a breath. Or I'm resisting the fact that I need to lie down and put my legs up on a chair and unwind for a few minutes.

Or any number of things. So many little subtle messages that the mind and the heart could feel and hear and act on if we would just let ourselves. And, speaking of mind and heart, heart mind, this requires courage. So cour, from the heart, courage to listen and maybe to not be so proud. It is a matter of pride to not listen and just go with what could be healthier.

There's a Rumi poem and some of the lines in that poem just speak to me again and again. All of us are suffering. None of us has gotten that far. Put your arrogance down and look around inside. There you find a million suns come shining forth when you sit in that place of not resisting.

A brightness, a light of awareness comes and that takes putting down the pride. Suddenly, that lowness, that humbleness allows things to change. So how do we manage? How do we prevent things from getting worse? It's just line up with the center of gravity.

I call it the gravity line. So how do you know if you're not in the gravity line? Are you leaning off to one side as a habit? Probably more subtle than that. Maybe you just have a little head down, shoulder up slightly.

You don't notice it anymore. So we want to become more sensitive to really coming into center and to allow for the fact that what we may, at first, experience as center also contains various compensations and to be vulnerable enough and open enough to explore and try to find how to come more on center. So that's a good line of inquiry. Am I in my center? What does being in center actually mean?

These sequences are designed to help us become more sensitive to that. And not only become more sensitive to what is in line with gravity, but to wake up the places that maybe aren't supporting us to be in the center of gravity. To wake them up and to give a little more stability and strength to the places that are not contributing. And to release places that are overworking. We don't even notice how we are overworking places in the body so let's learn how to let those go.

And part of being able to let those go is to bring the places that are offline back in. And so many of these practices are aimed towards that and some of them are aimed towards managing the situation through how to do some activities that contribute to just more ease in the joints as you are doing a typical activity in yoga. I'm giving some hints about how to prevent those things from causing any damage, causing any pain. Pain is the first thing. Damage comes later.

Okay, so let's notice the pain. And as we become more sensitive and more aware, it's like shining light in a dark place. Suddenly, everything that is in that dark place is illumite and illumination brings relief. Just like, oh what a relief. Now I know what's going on.

I get it. The Buddha, when he spoke about awareness and that kind of awareness that really helps us experience all of life as completely interconnected and whole. That co-arising with that awareness is tremendous compassion. So when we experience awareness of what is going on for us, let's allow some compassion to come into and come along with that light. Compassion first for ourselves.

And along with compassion always comes the wish to help. How can I help myself feel better and how can I help others as well? So I need to help myself first. So we can help ourselves first, feel better, feel more joy, feel more love. We can help others.

I'm so happy to be together and sharing all this work that is almost a lifetime of waking up and waking up and waking up and waking up. Hope it helps. Thank you.