Hi,

I was in a terrible mood when I got home today. Instead of procrastinating I got off my lazy behind & did some exercise. I did some hand weights, some floor exercises & I practiced the yoga "V" position with the salute the sun poses I've been avoiding in public gyms due to neck & shoulder pain. Because I was at home I could do it in my own time so I decided to be brave & do it very carefully with great care placed on my technique. Then I spent half an hour doing a nice relaxing stretch with my breathing exercises.

I feel amazing. I feel energized. My pain is of less intensity. I have more movement through my spine, I can turn my neck & it pulls less from reduced muscle tightness. Every single muscle feels warm & looened & generally much more comfortable. I can breathe comfortably again with less chest pain because I did my chest opening spinal twists stretching. I like to strengthen & stretch every muscle group to get the pain out of all my body that comes from my chronic spinal pain condition. My searing pain has changed to a mild discomfort. It will take at least several hours before my pain increases again so I can enjoy the pleasant feeling of feeling almost normal.

I know that it can be easy to make excuses not to exercise & make excuses about feeling too crook. My yoga teacher once said if you don't think you could do one hour of exercise, aim for only 5 minutes of exercise a day. This makes it more manageable because you haven't set yourself an unrealistic goal. You may even do more than the 5 minutes because it feels good, but if you don't it doesn't matter because you only meant to do it for 5 minutes in the first place. It worked for me anyway.

I wanted to share how much of a transformation can happen to a mood with the help of getting your body moving & getting those endorphins flowing. My problem isn't any bigger or smaller. It is out of my mind & I can deal with it another day.

Happiness ebbs & flows as do the tides. Sometimes there's a tsunami, or sometimes it's flat & calm.