Musings from the Mat

Went to a grueling/satisfying yoga class tonight. But it was good! More about that in a minute because right now I have got to share with you my own personal epiphany from the mat this evening!

This happens to me a lot in yoga class. I'm on my mat and bam! I get hit with a lesson. I have a moment of so clearly experiencing the metaphor between yoga and life. This is when I start wondering if it would be too disruptive for me to get up and grab a pen and paper from my purse so I can jot down my discovery. Have never actually done that, but I think about it often...

So tonight I'm doing my yoga and the teacher cues us to hold our spinal balance for what feels like forever and I find myself struggling and thinking "I can't, I'm not strong enough" or something similar to that. Then I hear this tiny voice in my head say, "Just push through it!" And I know I can just push through it, because I have done that many times before. But this time something clicks and I think, "but wait...that is the opposite of yoga! Yoga is about staying present, even through the hard stuff." Then of course I realize this is exactly what has been going on for me lately (I tried to describe it here) - I have been pushing through, just trying to get things done, disconnecting from it all. So tonight on my mat I worked to stay present, even through the hard stuff.

And there was some hard stuff! Let me tell you we sat in Hero Pose for the first 15 minutes of the practice and when I finally wiggled my way out of it my feet and legs were completely numb/asleep, which really freaked me out. I felt like I was going to cry. It was not pretty. And this was before my profound realization about staying present! All I was doing was glaring at the teacher wondering why she was punishing us...but once I had my moment in spinal balance a few minutes later I was able to appreciate the challenge :-)

Image from earthspoweryoga.com