Sunday Off.
Monday 6:30 pm with Sherry.
Last week I got some new blood pressure medicine. The first medicine the doctor gave me brought my blood pressure down from emergency hospitalization levels to about 150/100 (+/- 10 on either side). The new medicine actually works, perhaps too well. I'm typically around dead normal now, which is alot better than dead. And I've had readings as low as 100/65.
The reason I'm mentioning this is because the new medicine also seems to have a side effect. It does something strange to my constitution about 1-2 hours after I take it. And that's exactly when I took it on Monday. The upshot was that coming out of a forward bend made me dizzy. Toward the end of standing series, I started to get chills. Think of it, chills in a Bikram class! And I had some really bad reflux issues on top of it. By Half Tortoise, I was an utter mess. And I limped to the end, doing one set per pose. A couple of times, on the floor, I nearly fell asleep, and almost missed the instruction to get up for the second set.
I'm forgiving myself for this total disaster, because I think quite a bit of it was drug induced. And I hope over time I will be able to wean myself off these drugs. And now for the funny/remarkable thing: After class, my knee felt much, much better. And it has since, as well. That just goes to show that even an amazingly shitty Bikram class is way better than nothing at all.
The day 302 meditation focuses on two things -- keeping it simple, and taking risks. Keeping it simple, in this context, means showing up. And for Gates, showing up and being present end up being the same thing. The more present you are, the more you are in the moment, the more you have shown up. And, for him, its as simple as that. Everything else follows.
The cool thing is that taking risks, for Gates, means exactly the same thing. Playing it safe is withdrawing from the moment. It's not showing up. And in the end, it is more harmful than taking a risk. Part of me wants to say, "But that's so simple." But that's exactly the point, isn't it?
2 comments:
Hmm... Did you ask your teachers about how your new medication might mix with the yoga?? Or perhaps your doctor?
I haven't talked to the teachers about it. The doctor warned me that I might get a cough, but was very vague about other side effects. I don't think this is a "side effect" anyways. Instead, I think my body has gotten used to operating at high pressure, and being normal now feels very weird.
The dizzyness coming out of a forward bend is exactly the same thing that a yogini here complains about all the time. She has very low blood pressure, and sometimes she just gets dizzy in some of the poses. I'm not that worried about it, and I can solve the problem I had this time by simply taking the medicine at night.
Post a Comment