An Experiment

Unfortunately endometriosis hurts. It hurts physically, obviously, but also takes a grand toll on our emotions and well-being. In our present culture we often reach for easy, fast-acting, and frequently medicinal solutions to our problems. I for one am curious as to other techniques we can use to gain relief.

✅On second thought, I've suffered from endo for so long and sometimes so intensely, that saying it hurts as I did doesn't even seem to do it justice necessarily. But I'm not sure of how to put it to words. It is one of those things that purple cannot fully understand the severity of the pain unless you've experienced it yourself.

I am working on starting an experiment with some beautiful endo sisters who are brave and willing to work with me. My goal is to end up with some yoga poses that have potential to offers relief, either physical or emotional.

I'm a student. I'm not in school. I'm in life though and love reading, researching, learning. So I've designed an experiment. I'm wracking my yoga-experienced mind and soul, along with a really great yoga resource book to come up with some yoga poses. I've selected several poses, somewhat related, yet different enough. I've also developed a tool that I'll send to my fellow brave endo sisters to track how we're feeling physically and emotionally. We'll track ourselves, our body and our mind each day before we do the pose, we'll track ourselves during the enactment of the pose, and immediately upon completion and finally we'll check in two hours later. We'll do each pose twice a day. And as yoga is about breath, balance, movement, sequence, flow, I'll provide a simple breathing, check-in sequence that we'll all do before we start the pose. Because none of us are actively practicing yoga at present, we're going to be easy on our bodies. We're 'only' going to do one pose per day. Eventually I'd love to see our results compiled into a Brave Healing endo sister yoga sequence resource.

Because endometriosis is such an individual and personal disease, while we each may have some similar issues and experiences, frequently it impacts our lives and bodies in very different ways. This is why I'm not just doing this by myself, I would ultimately end up with some yoga poses that help me, and while obviously that is great and useful, I felt that this was meant to be a more in depth study and could result in some interesting findings.

I had a conversation about this with my therapist about this idea and I couldn't be more excited to be doing this. So, right now I've enlisted my amazing endo sisters who will work with me and track their experience and feelings. (I'm beyond grateful and proud of them for being so brave and open to participating in this project). I've compiled a yoga pose plan. I'm working this morning on making my little form to track our feelings along with the poses and I thought that I'd introduce this project to the Brave Healing community, and the endo (and non-endo) world at large.

I'd like to start with a brief introduction and dialogue on yoga.

There are two words within the culture of yoga that truly live at and compose the foundation of yoga in its entirety; they are both Sanskrit words: PRANA and APANA.

PRANA means what nourishes a living thing. It has over time come to really take a meaning of the action that brings nourishment within. When PRANA is capitalized it takes on the meaning of all creative life force.

APANA means the waste that is eliminated, as well as the act of elimination.

All Living systems require balance, and yoga is no different: the PRANA and APANA complement one another. These two functions are equally important to every level of life and interaction. Yoga isn't technically a living, breathing thing, but it most definitely elevates, balances and further enhances living- which, to me, does turn it into a system of living.

As we endosisters know, we can frequently be impacted from this disease by a variety of issues that effect our abdominal, pelvic area. Our abdominal cavity can change shape and is very flexible, fluid-filled-- think: water balloon. When you squeeze one end, the other end bulges. So while the volume may remain steady, the shape can vary and change when manipulated in such a way. This can become very complicated, but all we really need to know is that virtually the same principles apply when breathing impacts our abdominal cavity: a squeeze in one region produces a bulge in the other within the breathing process. There are other experiences or times in our bodies that yield similar results. For example, if you enjoy a big meal or drink? We experience an expansion of our abdominal organs, stomach, intestines, bladder. Any increase in volume in the abdominal cavity produces a corresponding decrease in the volume of the thoracic cavity. This is why it is more difficult to take deep breaths after a big meal, before a big bowel movement, or when pregnant. By defining breathing as shape change, it become very easy to understand what makes breathing more effective or obstructed.

Anyhow, I just wanted to give a brief introduction to a few of the various aspects of yoga. I'm hoping to send out my tracking forms out to my girls tomorrow and then begin poses Friday or Saturday. This is so exciting.

One of my very favorite yoga poses is called Tree Pose. I'm going to use it as our first test pose. I'll post a photo of the pose and step by strep written instruction of the pose. As an example I'll just show Tree Pose for now:

Tree Pose

Stand with arms at sides. Take a moment here, deeply inhale and exhale slowly. Find your balance here.

Shift weight onto left leg and place sole of right foot into the left ankle, take a deep inhale as you lift the right foot up and attempt to place your foot inside your left thigh, keeping hips facing forward.

Once balanced, bring hands in front of you in prayer position, palms together, thumbs lightly touching your chest, fingers activated and spread.

On an inhalation, extend arms over shoulders, palms separated and facing each another. Stay for 30 seconds, or as long as comfortable. If needed stay within reach of a couch, wall, back of chair- if you need help with balance you can grab, but try to keep posture in mind, keeping your back straight, not leaning over too much.

Lower and repeat on opposite side.

Make it easier: Bring your right foot to the inside of your left ankle, keeping your toes on the floor for balance. As you get stronger and develop better balance, move your foot to the inside of your left calf.