Monday, February 4, 2013

Push Past

For those of you who know me, you probably know that my favorite dancer is Alethea Austin. Her style and music choices are to die for, but recently what I've begun appreciating about her is her motto- "push past". Push past the pain to the other side, where you will find strength and amazing things.
Since this is a blog about physical, emotional, and mental health, I feel like this story belongs here. I have recently had my heart broken. The person I thought would never leave me did, and left me alone to try and pick up the pieces of my bleeding, shattered heart. It's been beyond hard, but one day as I was dancing in class, Alethea's motto came to mind- push past. A little voice in the back of my head told me to breathe through the pain, to feel it, own it, and not fight it. I was reminded of a stretch class I took with my favorite instructor at NYPD, Bonnie. She pushed us to our limits, telling us stretch as far as we could on our own then working with us to push us past what I had even thought possible. My initial reaction when she came to push me deeper into the stretch was to resist, to fight back and push her off of me. But she's not going anywhere. Eventually you learn to breathe into where it hurts- your hips, your hamstrings, your quads, and the pain goes away or becomes something tolerable. I decided to try this in my everyday life. Whenever I feel the waves of anguish coming over me, rather than avoiding them like the plague, I try to accept that they will happen, and breathe into and through them. Now this is much easier said than done. My tolerance for physical pain is through the roof, however my tolerance for emotional pain is slight, if any. But I am finding ( and this is only day 3 of trying this technique) that I have hidden emotional reserves that carry me through the times where I feel like the pain is so much I can't bear it any longer. I imagine the pain of stretching for increased flexibility, and just try to breathe through it. Accept it. That which you resist persists, as a famous Buddhist saying goes.

2 comments:

  1. I am so sorry to hear you're hurting, but I'm glad you can find a little relief in that technique. You'll get past it in time. All my best making it through this.

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  2. I realize this post is over a year old and I hope your heart has healed by now, but I so appreciate your sharing your story. I'm also a big fan of Alethea Austin and her motto, and I'm trying to "push past" through my own struggles right now.
    Best of luck to you :)

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