Yoga Teacher training was a little challenging for my 44 year old bones, but I stepped up to the plate and did remarkably well. The only problem that I experienced in my first couple of months was this strange lower back "burning." It wasn't a muscle pull or a spasm, it was like there was a lit cigarette trapped in muscles of my lower back right where my hip flexors connected to my lower spine. It attributed it to over training and I was fine with it.
But the truth of the matter is this...
I was pregnant with THE PEOPLE IN MY HIPS.
It was my third month of Yoga Teacher Training. I was taking a class at BeYoga in Midtown Manhattan being taught by an extremely gifted Yoga teacher by the name of Douglass Stewart. I had taken his class a number of times before and I loved it. His teaching style personified Yoga. He was present, compassionate and at times, humorous. Little did I know at this time, that we would form a unique YOGA BOND in the years to come.
It was towards the end of the class, and we were doing a Yoga Asana called Maltese Twist. It is a chest opener and a hip opener. One lies on their side, with their knees to their chest and then the upper torso twists open. As I moved into the twist, I started to cry... but I had no idea what I was crying about. Tears were streaming from my eyes, I was breathing as if I was crying, yet the crying was disconnected somehow. It was as if someone else was crying, while I stood by watching. It was bizarre. Unsettling.
As I moved out of the stretch, my "crying" subsided. I talked with Douglass about it after class.
He said that sometimes in the process of your Yoga practice feelings will arise. I should just breathe, be with it and eventually the feelings will dissapate.
But that wasn't the case this time...
I was giving birth.