Why do people try to keep it together? And, sometimes they have to work very hard at it, too.
I do it myself. I was reminiscing tonight about how I took up bicycle riding again eight months after I’d had hip replacement surgery. I hadn’t ridden a bike for 20 years. I was using the bike at the Burning Man Festival, covering miles of desert on and off over several days. After the first day out, by the time I returned to my tent, I broke down in tears from the effort of being tenacious (even after having fallen off the bike a few times).
I was thinking about this episode in relation to students who come to class with injuries and think or hope that the yoga asanas will help them. Maybe it will, but I’m not a medico or even a certified yoga therapist, so what I have to offer has limitations.
I don’t understand the mentality of toughing it out, even having said that I do it. I know that, even though I felt wrung out from my bicycling escapades, I also felt proud of myself for my courage and persistence.
Are any of these yoga attitudes? Are they even me? When does perseverance turn into pushiness? When does stick-to-it-ive-ness become stubbornness?

You teach what you most need to learn. – Old saying