Retracing the Roots of a Hot Yoga Reaction

Retracements are temporary symptoms that occur during a deep healing regimen, like say, for instance, hot yoga.

Are you familiar with the healing phenomenon known as Retracement?  It means that during a deep healing, your body may literally choose to retrace/ go back/ relive those old infections, wounds, injuries, or other imbalances from the past, in order to clear them out fully this time around. 

Retracing can be about eliminating toxic substances, healing chronic infections, or clearing out old emotional wounds. It results in a metabolic increase in vitality.

But you know what they say: the truth shall set you free, but first it shall piss you off. And hot yoga can piss you off big-time. Here's why:

Healing crises or reactions are an essential feature of all true and deep healing methods.  Hot Yoga is a very powerful healing method. And so you may experience some stuff you don't like, or don't understand.

It's common for students to come and tell me that they were feeling better in hot yoga last week and this week, they can't even touch their toes. Poses you think you've mastered suddenly feel foreign again. That dizzy feeling you finally got over in Camel - now you feel like puking.

Yes, these reactions can be confusing and unpleasant – after all, you expected to feel better, not worse.  But retracements can be welcome signs of a healing in progress. If you learn to recognize them, they can even help you learn patience. A minor miracle for most of us (that includes me.)

In fact, it is said that healing methods that offer superficial symptomatic relief are generally not as deeply healing as those therapies that cause healing reactions. Those pills that make you feel better may quiet your symptoms - everything from getting over a headache to killing off the bacterial infection -  but may not really be healing the root of the problem. Even surgery to put you back together can sometimes offer immediate relief - but doesn't always result in a longterm healing (the number of people who need another open heart surgery or additional back surgery? Staggering.)

Among the medical sciences that cause deep healing reactions are chiropractic, homeopathy, some herbal remedies, and nutritional balancing science. Among the less medical methods that rely on retracment: fasting, meditation, and yoga, particularly hot yoga. I know this from my personal experience as a hot yoga teacher these past 15 years. Though I taught other hatha yoga forms (I have been at this for over 40 years), I cannot compare the "healings" I have heard students report from hot yoga, to any other yoga form.

Some hot yoga students fo notice an immediate shift for the better following their first, second or third hot yoga class: relief from chronic pain including fibromyalgia and migraines, knee and back pain relief, more restful sleep and more energy the next day.  Maybe you had such a wonderful first experience in hot yoga.

Lucky you.

But almost every diligent hot yoga student at some point reaches the healing retracement level : just when you expected things to get better – after you’ve done a month, 2 months, a year of hot yoga – suddenly you feel worse.

Lucky you.

Students always ask me, what’s up with that? Why after all the hard work in hot yoga, all the commitment to attending classes and giving it 100%, all the ground they gained in flexibility, strength and stress relief, why suddenly are they unable to reach their arms overhead without pain? To hold a pose without losing balance? To hold back the flow of tears in music hot yoga class?

Now you know why. Now you know a little more about the miracle healing machine that your body truly is. So relax in Savasana and let your body do its thing. No matter what you thought is was going to look like, it's perfect just as it is.

Let the healing begin. Literally. When you are retracing, it is a signal that you are finally ready to get to the root of that issue. You didn't come to hot yoga by accident; you're here for some deep exploration. Eyes open, please.