Amir’s Shopping Therapy

Recently I woke up with sudden and severe hip pain. Maybe I had slept in a strange position, or maybe my body was trying to tell me something I hadn’t yet realized. The pain was sharp at certain angles, deep and hard to describe. It was intense enough that I knew I needed help

I almost picked up the phone to call my doctor, but first I wanted to do some self-investigation, so I reached for what I already knew, pulling out my bag of yoga therapy techniques – the very ones I’ve taught for years – and went to work, carefully applying tools of mindful movement, breath, and gentle reconditioning.

The pain began to recede, but I knew that what I really needed was repeated, precise, weight-bearing movement in perfect alignment to stabilize and reinforce the healing. After a quick visit to the chiropractor to help with initial alignment, my intuition led me to a somewhat counter-intuitive place: Costco.

If you’ve ever been to Costco, you know that a shopping trip can turn into a long walk, weaving through aisles, pushing a cart, and covering more distance than you intended. I wasn’t there to shop. I was there to walk. With a cart as movable support, I could focus on balanced, full-leg range of walking movement from my pelvis down – step after step, aisle after aisle, aligning and strengthening at the same time. Two hours later, the pain was gone.

Pain has a way of narrowing our vision, making us feel like we need immediate, drastic solutions. But healing – real healing – requires patience, alignment, and experimentation with movement. It asks us to trust our body’s ability to recover when given the right conditions.

So, if you find yourself in pain, don't panic! Remember that sometimes the path to healing isn’t necessarily in a prescription pad, a doctor's office, or even a yoga class. Sometimes, it’s in the mundane, everyday aisles of Costco, one mindful step at a time.