By Daniel Blackburn

This past February, my wife Ann and I were taking a walk. It wasn’t strenuous, especially compared to the hiking and snorkeling we’d done in Costa Rica the month before. Running through Miami International Airport after that trip had been significantly more stressful than the stroll we were on! So I was a little surprised as the pain behind my left shoulder became more and more pronounced.

I’d recently been having issues with that shoulder. In January I’d fallen down the stairs while washing my yoga studio’s blankets. Luckily nothing broke, and I’d been addressing the pain with somatics, yoga, physical therapy, and massage.

This pain was different. It was deeper and felt like a spear had been lodged into the back of my shoulder blade, pinning it to my ribs. Pain remained even as I moved through a slow range of motion. But nothing was stuck back there. The pain worsened, starting to wrap around the front of my shoulder.

“This really f-ing hurts!” I said to Ann. “I mean, this is really incredible.” And then, “I wonder if this is a heart attack.”

We stopped and, as yoga therapists, concentrated on the practices we knew so well—in this case a calming breath. Low and slow into the belly. The pain eased, and we continued to our studio just 2 blocks away. We unrolled a couple of yoga mats and started a practice consisting of small, isolated movements. Using interoception (the sense of the body’s internal state), curiosity, and discernment to guide me, the pain was soon completely gone. After the walk home, I made the earliest cardiology appointment I could, fortunately only a few days away.

Making sense of a stressful situation

Three days a week you’d find Ann and me at the local YMCA doing circuit training. I teach three or four yoga classes a week. My diet consists of a lot of vegetables, beans, rice, and fiber, with fish and occasionally chicken and maybe a glass of wine a week. Sure, I could stand to lose a few pounds, but I didn’t really fit the bill as a person at great risk for a heart attack.

I had left a high-pressure executive job 3 years previously. Stress and cortisol (a stress-related hormone) can do a lot of damage. I’d had COVID. And genetics are tough to outrun. My father died of a heart attack when he was 44. I was about to turn 62.

The cardiologist’s CT scan revealed the need for more testing—an angiogram. I was hoping that the clearer picture that comes from an angiogram would show that the narrowing of my arterial walls could be managed with a balloon-like procedure (angioplasty) or a supporting screened mesh (stent). Unfortunately, the damage to my arteries was too great: I needed triple bypass surgery, and quickly.

Bringing my yoga to life

What do you do when a life-altering surgery is 9 days away? If you’re a yoga therapist like me, you set intentions for a positive outcome, ask for help, and rearrange everything for the next several months.

The ripple effects of major surgery spread well beyond the person having the procedure. While I communicated to students, paused clients, and made sure our finances were in order, Ann rescheduled a retreat and a training course we were offering and found substitutes for the studio teaching schedule. We told the kids together. I could expect extreme light duty for a while. Friends and family altered their own schedules to support. Mountains moved and seas parted. I am forever grateful.

Coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) like the procedure I needed is relatively common, with more than 400,000 done every year in the United States. But what was another day at the office for the surgeon and staff definitely wasn’t routine for Ann and me. Although my surgery was planned, not an emergency, and without complications, I still woke up in the intensive care unit on heavy pain medication.

If the presence of mind that comes from a dedicated yoga practice helped to prepare me for an unexpected surgery, that ICU bed is where my yoga practice started to get real.

At 6:30 the morning after my surgery, the hospital staff had me sit up and get out of bed. The trick? I couldn’t use my arms to do it. Any type of pushing or pulling would affect the ribs, and with my sternum recently cut in half using my arms for anything would have serious implications. Getting up took core strength. Hooray for years of yoga asana (physical practice)!

The next test: going from seated to standing and back to seated. Again, no arm use. After I amazed the staff with these miraculous feats, Ann smiled: “We teach people how to do this every day.” I was out of the ICU in 24 hours and discharged from the hospital a few days later, after proving I could walk up and down stairs and breathe well. (We call it a diaphragmatic breath in yoga therapy, but really all natural breathing involves your respiratory diaphragm.)

Yoga practice does more than increase physical strength. A traumatic event like a surgery or major illness affects every kosha, or layer of ourselves, and my practices had also given me tools to heal on every layer—mentally, emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually.

The first few days home were exhausting on most of those levels. At times, the best I could do was sit on the couch and cry. Happy tears. Tears of extreme gratitude. It’s profoundly amazing to be alive. Every sight, smell, touch, taste, and sound brought with it wonder and awe.

The slow road back

I slept a lot, but not necessarily with ease. My first week home I was up every 2 hours for a bathroom break due to one of the medications pulling moisture out of my body to prevent swelling. If I happened to make it for longer, I became stiff and had to get up to walk around a bit before another nap. All that up and down during the night was another reality made easier by my years of yoga practice.

Exercise was slow. For weeks I moved like I was perpetually acting in a slow-motion picture. I measured walking distance by bathroom breaks. Fifty yards became 100 yards; 100 yards became a walk around the block. My first big venture was half a mile to a coffee shop I was positive had a bathroom. With practice, my walks became faster and longer. I’ll never forget my first mile-long walk—I almost didn’t make it to the bathroom.

My breath was a constant focus for a few weeks. Here again, I felt lucky. The yoga practice of deliberately using the diaphragm for pranayama (breathwork) made it easier not to breathe into my upper chest. However, it did not prevent the pain of feeling my chest expand as I tried to re-gain volume in my lungs. I felt the breath move into parts of my ribs I hadn’t felt before. While lying in bed one night soon after surgery I had a vision of my ribs like the latticework of a basket weave. Inhaling would expand the lattice to a point where resistance was strong, and I’d hear my ribs and diaphragm asking whether this was it. Had I gotten to the end of my limit? Or did I want a little more? A little more came with physical pain. It also came with the reward of my world expanding millimeters at a time.

Mental processing and emotions were present, too. Shame? How could this happen to a yoga therapist? A coach? Someone who spent almost 3 decades in the health food industry? I could choose to beat myself up instead of focusing on healing—and honestly, those emotions came up once or twice. Briefly. We all have choices on how to spend our time in life. I didn’t have room for shame.

When I was up for thinking, there was plenty to think about: water intake calculations, walking distances, breathing exercises, medication. I spent much of the first few weeks after surgery sitting on the couch with classical music playing, staring off into space.

Although I’d gratefully accepted pain meds while staying in the hospital, I felt I’d be better off with a clear head and some manageable level of pain. With focus, patience, and more breaks, I was off all pain meds in a week.

Psychologically it was difficult to be present to a lack of strength and mobility that had been so clear a day or week before. Tasks I had considered easy either couldn’t be done at all or required a lot of assistance. Instead of a provider, I felt that I had become a burden. Still, every day was—and is—a celebration. Every day brought an opportunity for gratitude. So I measured walking distance every day and celebrated. The dishwasher got emptied one glass, one plate, one utensil at a time. Every day my confidence grew.

It took 3 weeks before I rolled out a yoga mat and started with small standing movements, paying strict attention to form. The moving meditation of yoga that I had practiced before surgery was temporarily gone. This current practice was about getting to know myself again. I kept my arm movements close to my body because extending the arms adds load that affects the sternum. I practiced patience, knowing that injuries would do nothing but set me back.

The fourth week came with a follow-up doctor appointment and x-rays. Good news! I could start rolling on my side during sleep and start to drive again. Restrictions on the weight I could lift decreased—instead of just 5 pounds I could now lift 10. Cardio-rehab started in the fifth week.

I taught my first post-CABG yoga class on a Saturday morning 8 weeks after surgery. It’s been 6 months now since that afternoon stroll. My gratitude is boundless, as is my hope that my story will encourage others to build their own yoga practice and set themselves up for resilience in the face of life’s inevitable illnesses and stress.

In addition to being a yoga therapist, Daniel Blackburn, C-IAYT, authored Lost and Found: A Journey of Self Mastery. A speaker and executive coach, Daniel was a leader in the natural foods industry for 28 years before joining Tula Yoga & Wellness in St. Paul, Minn.