I remember years ago doing the dishes by hand day after day and after every session I always had to go lie down on the floor, rest and stretch my back because it always hurt. I thought that it was just a part of life with the modern world and housework. Yet yogic awareness, awareness of my body and how it felt in the moment, brought a source of insight that cured me of my back pain forever.

I believe that different people experience back pain for different reasons. It could be some sort of improper use of the body (as mine was) or it could be due to an old injury, or it could be an attitude (Louis Hay’s book You Can Heal Your Life is a good place to start discovering the emotional connections to dis-eases). Or it could be a combination; it could be an attitude which caused that old injury which is still causing discomfort or it could be an attitude that is resulting in poor posture or improper use of the body. Once I made the connection for myself, it was so crystal clear; I never experienced lower back pain again.

I have a friend who told me one day that he also experienced lower back pain every time he did the dishes and that is why he didn’t like to do them. So I shared with him my yogic insight and my experience. He realized that he was doing the exact same thing. So he adjusted himself the way that I had and he too hasn’t experienced any more lower back pain while doing the dishes either. Two people cured. So I started to think that there must be others out there who also experience this if it had so strongly affected me and my friend. So I wanted to write this article and see if there are others that this direct yogic insight could help.

So here is the scoop. I realized that while I was washing the dishes I would always lean forward with my hips and rest them against the counter top. I thought I was making it easier for my body but I was just being lazy. I was not using the strength of my abdomen and my back to hold me up. So my muscles were relaxed and I was over stretching my lower back which is what caused the pain.

Once I realized this I stopped leaning my hips against the counter top. I pulled my hips back just an inch or so away from the counter. That was it. That is all it took to cure my lower back pain forever; that one little adjustment to a simple task that I do everyday. Of course it also took the awareness and the remembrance to do that every time I was at the sink because it was such in ingrained habit to do it the other way. Yet with time the new way of standing at the sink became the norm and I don’t really have to think about it anymore.

We put ourselves in so many different positions throughout the day. We do so many different tasks. We can be unconscious about it with the possibility of causing ourselves harm in the long or short term. Or we can bring present moment living awareness to our actions and have the possibility of greater health, vitality and enjoyment. The choice is ours in every moment. All we have to do is start again and pay attention. You too can have an insight that just may cure you of some long standing pain forever.