I made my return to the hot yoga studio today after a break. I expected that I wouldn’t be able to hold the poses as I could when I was in class four times a week. Surely my absence would have cost me mobility and yoga strength.

I was right.

But my reduced mobility wasn't caused by what I expected. I assumed it would be my hamstrings, calves, and hips that would be the problem areas—and maybe they would have been, but it was another area that impacted my ability to hold poses like normal.

My chest.

Poses like dancer and camel were harder than usual because my chest was tight—I couldn’t kick my leg as high or reach back for my feet, not because of my legs, but because my chest wouldn’t let me. At least that’s my diagnosis because I could feel the pull in my chest, but for all I know it could have been a tight back that led to the pull being felt in my chest.

All I know is that my hamstrings or quads weren't giving me any problems.

Sometimes the root of the problem we are facing stems from a different place than we expected or maybe in a different place than it appears.

This doesn’t just happen within our bodies.

Let’s say you're unhappy at work. You think it’s because you don’t enjoy your job, but the real problem is a bad relationship at home. The stress and issues at home spill into your work, and you mistake feelings from home for feelings about work.

Whenever you’re facing a problem or a pain in your body, take the time to step back and fully assess what’s going on, because where the problem is showing up or the pain is being felt isn’t really where the issue is.

If you don’t get to the root of the problem—where it is really originating—you run the risk of treating the wrong problem, not getting better, and possibly making things worse because you’re treating a problem that doesn’t exist.

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See you tomorrow and keep pursuing,

JC