The Hot Yoga Pain Game

"Oy, this pain in my shoulder is so bad I can't lift my arms for three weeks already."

I grew up in Jewish household where the name of the game was Who's Got Worse Troubles. If the trouble was painful, it was particularly holy. You wore your injury til you wore it out. Then, someone with a more death-defying ailment always stepped in.

In my house, this kind of talk was called "conversation."

As I grew up and engaged in outside conversations, I slowly realized that this was not normal; to focus on pain, to stir it up like stew and chew on it again and again. When I moved out at nineteen, I closed the door on painful talk.

Then, some twenty two years later,  I took up hot yoga.

Now, thinking back to my family fascination with pain, I'm beginning to wonder if maybe they were onto something...

Does pain make you a hero?

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