Stories of Healing

“I Discovered the DO NOTHING" Plan to Heal Myself

 

Back in May this year, as I was taking an online Floor Barre class that I am in every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, I injured my back.  I’m not a power yoga or a core power person. This Floor Barre method given over Zoom with facilitators was simply laying on the floor and performing micro-movements to free up parts of ourselves in order to find release and ease. It’s not particularly difficult. We had started to learn a new movement, and I felt I was rushed into it without having the time to prepare myself to properly engage my center. In the moment of execution, I said to myself, “that isn’t good.” I didn’t feel any pain at that point.

 

Later on, I jumped on my bicycle and rode out to the river to ride up the path. When riding back home, I have a long, slow steep incline to pedal up towards my building. I didn’t find it particularly difficult. I now know it exacerbated the injury.The next day, I was unable to get out of bed. The lower back pain was so severe. Up until this point in my long life, I never ever had experienced any back issues or pain. This was new. It was severe. As I don’t ever submit myself to the medical industrial complex I was trying to decide what it is I could do to find support, healing and relief.

 

I figured if I had gone to a doctor or a hospital they would have shot me through and through with painkillers and put me under surgery. Not for me. What to do?My chiropractor is in New Jersey and I reside in Manhattan, New York City. I could not even consider having to take several trains to get to her. And, I was concerned that she would do an adjustment that would be detrimental to me.

 

I know Antionette Fiumos from a small online group of women from the US and Europe we are in. We meet every other Thursday. Antoinette is a healer and an acupuncturist. I contacted her. Could she do distance acupuncture? I didn’t have an acupuncturist in New York City. I didn’t want to start with someone new. What Antionette strongly recommended is that I use some particular massage techniques on certain points and to DO NOTHING. She means NOTHING.I am not a DO NOTHING kind of person. I am active.

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What was my alternative? I could not continue to be incapacitated and be in such pain. I would never submit myself to so called medical carethat uses pharmaceuticals to mask symptoms and no guarantee for healing. So, I DID NOTHING. I laid on my back on the floor for the whole time. I didn’t lift anything. I did not carry anything. I stayed on my back. I did the massage treatment prescribed. And continued to DO NOTHING. I was dedicated to this practice. So counter-cultural. So out of step with the rest of the world. DO NOTHING?

 

We are taught that we must DO SOMETHING. I desperately needed to heal as much as I could. I trusted Antoinette. We checked in with each other every day to track my progress.Truthfully, I was on my back on the floor for a good six weeks. It was seven weeks before I could go back to life as I’d known it. And now, I ride by bicycle again being aware to keep all the motion in my legs and not to engage my back on the hills. I have not returned to Floor Barre. I don’t know that I will. I won’t lift or carry heavy things anymore.  At least not for now.  I cannot ever take my health for granted again. I now know what it takes to heal to get back to homeostasis. It is giving my body the time and the opportunity to heal itself in stillness, in silence, in calming my nervous system.