People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle.  But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth.  Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don’t even recognize:  a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child – our own two eyes.  All is a miracle.  ~Thich Nhat Hanh

Life becomes precious and more special to us when we look for the little everyday miracles and get excited about the privileges of simply being human”  Tim Hansel quotes

These are the quotes that were fueling my yoga practice this week…sharing quotes with my students usually gives me such a wonderful feeling. But not today.  Today they just pissed me off….actually today everything is pissing me off; funny how pain can do that to a person.   I am an angry, bitter yogi today – sure it’s happened here and there over the years — but never have I had such a crisis of faith in all of it…I’m ready to throw up my hands and just go back to being a meat eating, alcohol swilling, no caring WHATEVER…if all my clean living leads to this????

Sure, I’ve had back pain before. I’ve overdone it; pushed to hard and had a little discomfort or even a terrible back ache – that went away. But this? OH NO…this is nearly unbearable, no position relieves the pain and it is turning my mind to mush.   I’m questioning EVERYTHING…what good is a daily asana practice (that is done with back trouble in mind), what good is the clean diet, supplements, etc if you are still going to end up feeling like crap??? Seriously???  OK I know I am generally this positive blogger…all rainbows and sunshine and to tell you the truth that is what is pissing me off right now…

Help me my elephant friends…I am at a loss.  It all started with back discomfort…DISCOMFORT with occasional flare ups, but they were becoming a nuisance so I thought I would get it checked out just to make sure..the chriropractor took an X-Ray and low and behold I had three vetebrae twisted to the left and curving to the left…so I began treatment. And I let my yoga practice turn therapeutic. Extra careful in my twists to not pull on the sacrum,  supported back bends only,  bent knee folds, flat back folds…gentle and loving was the name of the game…it just kept getting worse and worse. Finally I gave in – NOTHING for 5 days.  Total rest…and it seemed better not great but better. So I tried a little stretching and BAM back worse than ever.   I literally can’t stretch anything (well except maybe my shoulders) without excrutiating pain…wtf???

SO where do I go from here? I literally can not do any stretching…nada…zippo…every movement aggravates.  I have done a few guided meditations for relaxation…ODDLY when thinking about what led up to this emotionally and the days leading up to this crisis and I was in such a euphoric state of happiness — it seemed everything was lining up perfectly… hmmmmm….

Anyway off  to see the acupunturist and have an appt. with a new reiki healer on saturday…any other suggestions?   I miss my students, my asana and my feeling of strength. I know I always rise up and conquer in the end — but  today I’m allowing myself anger, at least for a little while.

Has anyone else experienced a crisis of faith? What was your experience and how did you overcome it?