The Experience of Pain in the Yoga Practice

"I think I got this pain from yoga."

Over the years of teaching, I’ve heard this sentence so many times. But what strikes me most isn't the pain they're describing, but how quickly people attribute discomfort to the practice itself, rather than considering everything that came before it - the hours spent sitting and the years of sedentary lifestyle.  While I understand that with any physical practice, there's a possibility of injury and yoga, even as a healing modality, is no exception. But more often than not, the pain that most practitioners are experiencing isn't something yoga created, but it's something that yoga revealed to us. 

Our bodies are incredibly adaptive. Over time, we develop unique tension patterns - a kind of physical architecture that keeps us stable and supports how we live. We don’t develop rounded, tight shoulders from one day of poor posture. It took years of slouching, of carrying stress in our upper body, and never quite stretching or strengthening those areas. It's been years in the making, woven into our tissues through repetition and habit. So, when we step onto the mat and begin to unravel these patterns, to open the chest and to lengthen what has been chronically shortened, there will definitely be discomfort. We're not simply stretching muscles; we're challenging the very structure we've built to move through the world. Undoing years of patterning doesn't happen in a single class or even a single month. And yes, it can hurt a little (or a lot). But this isn't the pain of damage, it's the pain of change.

When we first discover yoga, there's passion and spark of trying something new. But staying consistent with the practice requires something different. It demands endurance on the days you feel like giving up, the strength to keep going when things are challenging, and no longer fun and exciting.

Yoga has this way of holding up a mirror. It shows you where you're rigid and impatient, where you avoid discomfort, and where you push too hard. It challenges you to look at who you actually are, not who you think you should be. And that can be painful sometimes. It’s painful to let go of the stories we tell ourselves. It’s painful to face our limitations with honesty. It’s painful to keep showing up when progress feels invisible. Yet, there's something profoundly beautiful in this kind of pain. The kind of pain that makes us grow.

Of course, not all pain is useful. There's a difference between the discomfort of growth and the sharp signal that something is wrong. Learning to distinguish between them is part of the practice itself. The pain of awareness and growth has a quality to it - a kind of intensity that feels workable and you can breathe into it. It might be challenging, but it doesn't make you want to flee. Injury pain is different. It's sharper, more urgent. It tells you to stop, not to breathe deeper and it doesn't ease with attention. Part of developing a mature practice is learning to listen to these differences, to respect your body's signals. 

If you're experiencing discomfort in your yoga practice, I invite you to get curious. Ask yourself: Is this new, or is this something I've been carrying that I'm finally feeling? Is this the discomfort of change, or the pain of harm?

The practice of yoga doesn’t make pain disappear, it teaches us to be with discomfort in a new way. Because in the end, the practice isn't about just achieving a pain-free body. It's about developing a wiser, more compassionate relationship with ourselves. 

Keep practising,

Merdin x