Getting Injured: Four Positives to our Yoga Practice

It’s really easy to just look at an injury as a major bummer to our yoga practice. However, an injury can result in a lot of good if we can just keep a little perspective. Here are four positives to our yoga practice that can come out of getting injured.

1. Makes us change the status quo

It is very easy to do the same thing again and again. By our nature, many of us tend to stick to the familiar at the expense of growth opportunities. An injury is the ultimate disruptor to the monotony of the status quo. We are forced to adjust. We are forced to adapt. We are forced to change. Yoga practices inevitably become stale if we never change. An injury can be just the thing to move us out of our comfort zone.

2. Makes us take control of our practice instead of mindlessly giving in to a teacher’s instruction

It’s so easy to just mindlessly do what our teacher says in group practices. It’s very rare that we question anything or reflect on what would actually be best for us and our bodies. An injury cuts off this mindless repetition because we simply can’t function in the same way. We can’t be mindless. We have to be mindful.

3. Forces us to listen to our body and understand its subtle nuances

An injury can be such a gift. It drives us to better understand the inner workings of our bodies. When a weak spot is created within the anatomical system driving our bodily function, we reflect inward to understand the interconnected workings of our very complex physical system. This deep introspection can give us tremendous insight into our yoga practices. We take apart and dissect sequences. We start to understand why certain poses are easy for us while others are more difficult. Our injury, the chink in the armor of the status quo, has caused us to revisit everything and look closely at the cause and effect of every little sub-detail within our yoga practice.

4. Gives us the opportunity to create a modified home practice

An injury could easily keep us out of yoga class, but it can absolutely not keep us off the mat at home. It’s the perfect time to set about designing our own home yoga practice with modified sequencing and poses to work around our injury. We’ll find that designing our own practice will deepen our knowledge of yoga, increase our understanding of our personal needs and establish a new productive routine in our lives.