My back went out this week.  I feel like an old man, saying that.  "OY…MY ACHING BACK!!!" 

I was at the gym, lifting some free weights–like the total jock that I am–and I thought I would just do a little multi-tasking.  So I set my iPhone down between my thighs, on the bench, and continued to watch episode 2, season 2 of The Wire, which I had downloaded from iTunes.  All the while, pumping extraordinarily heavy weights.  Like 6,800 grams in each hand!  Anyway, even though everyone raves about The Wire and says that it’s the best television ever produced, I beg to differ.  And so does my back.  With my neck tilted forward and all that weight heaving up and down, something tweaked.  And I’ve been in bed for the last 48 hours.  Every time I roll over, I grimace and moan and my cats look at me with concern. 

Because I’m macrobiotic, I can’t blame this all on the weights, or my position, or even The Wire (even though it’s soooo not Six Feet Under, or even a lousy week on The Sopranos).  I have to actually look at this injury in terms of yin and yang.  So here goes:  We’re always looking at duality: up/down, front/back, in/out.  So where is the back?  Well, the name says all–at the back.  And the backs of things are the more yang parts.   Fronts tend to be expansive, backs contracting. 

And my back hurts in just one part–the lower part–also yang.  Yang, contracted things gravitate downward, so it’s the yang  part of my yang back. 

One more question:  did the injury feel like a stretch or a squeeze?  Definitely a squeeze.  Anyone who’s ever thrown their back out ("Get out of here you dirty back!  AND DON’T COME BACK!) knows that it all begins with a weird twisting that feels like a fist is squeezing the energy matrix on which the actual muscles rest.  That twist gets the muscles all tight and bingo!  Bed for two days.  In terms of yin and yang, stretching is yin (opening, expanding) and squeezing is yang (tightening, contracting). 

Sooooo, I seem to have a yang injury (tightness) in the yang part (lower) of my back, which is yang to begin with.  That means… drumroll… I HAVE BEEN EATING TOO MUCH YANG FOOD!  Like salt and baked flour.  And where there’s strong yang is usually strong yin (chocolate rice milk, anyone?)  Plus, I’m not getting enough good quality yin, like vegetable dishes and lighty seasoned soups.  The stomach meridian also runs down the back, so it might have to do with that, but I’m no accupuncturist, so don’t confuse me!  The food stuff all makes sense, as I have been to many restaurants lately (salty) and was noshing on corn chips ad nauseum over the weekend.  And yes, the chocolate rice milk too.  Oy.  

BUT I DON’T WANT TO TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR THIS!  As my friend David Snieckus says:  "I love macrobiotics!  Everything is my fault!"  And he’s only half kidding.  Being macro means searching for the causes of things and because we eat more than just about anything else we do, there is usually a food component to the many physical issues we deal with.  Sure, there are other factors, but food is always in the mix. 

So the back pain will teach me.  When my lovely friend Sanae brought me homemade miso soup yesterday, followed by aduki bean tea, I felt much better immediately.  I could sit in a position I hadn’t managed for the 18 hours previous.  When my sister brought me lunch pre-made from the store, my mouth loved it, but my back suddenly tightened up again.  Believe me, I’m not perfect.  I will slowly arc in the correct direction from now on.  It’s hard to give up yummy, easy, convenient food.  Especially when it’s basically healthy.  But the back will keep teaching and I will keep learning.  And that’s cool.

By the way,  I will be teaching online cooking classes Wednesday November 5th, 12th and 19th.  For details, click here.

See ya,

Jessica

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 22nd, 2008 at 7:18 pm and is filed under Blog, My Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.