I had a moment in yoga class today, lying on my mat, sweating profusely after having just done one set of cobra pose and the instructor wanted us to do another, where I felt she was simply asking too much of me. Deep down bubbled an overwhelming tangle of emotions and with each movement, even my breath, it created an earthquake ready to explode. I gathered my strength and willingness, cried a little and then surrendered to the pose and to the possibilities it presented to me. It wasn't the pose or my instructor I was finding difficulty with. It was my own feelings, my own powerlessness, my own life.
Each pose I entered into, every inhale, every exhale, I moved through a murky, muddy rumbling of emotion, and I wondered if I should just lay down in savasana and give up, throw the towel in. It's way too hard my head yelled loudly. I knew from my own experience there was freedom to be had if I was willing to keep moving forward, not in a state of perfection, but in a state of willingness and open-mindedness.
The last few years, since the recession hit and took names, there have been many a time where the only relief I could find from what was happening was to climb a mountain and literally shove the feelings up and out with every hiking-boot step. I would bawl and sniffle, bawl and sniffle, and climb higher and then find a place to set my weary bones and relief would spread over me like a bird opening its wings for the first time.
Yoga, this morning, was just that, a means to find freedom from the fettering of my life, of the constraints I place on what could possibly happen and how it's going to happen, when, ultimately, I do not know the happenings of a second from now or more. At the end of class, I laid in savasana and reveled in the feeling of my body and the emptiness of mind and knew with complete certainty I could venture out into my day, meet with who I needed to meet with, and communicate with them openly and honestly and be at peace with whatever the outcome was.
Freedom is attainable and refreshing.
Each pose I entered into, every inhale, every exhale, I moved through a murky, muddy rumbling of emotion, and I wondered if I should just lay down in savasana and give up, throw the towel in. It's way too hard my head yelled loudly. I knew from my own experience there was freedom to be had if I was willing to keep moving forward, not in a state of perfection, but in a state of willingness and open-mindedness.
The last few years, since the recession hit and took names, there have been many a time where the only relief I could find from what was happening was to climb a mountain and literally shove the feelings up and out with every hiking-boot step. I would bawl and sniffle, bawl and sniffle, and climb higher and then find a place to set my weary bones and relief would spread over me like a bird opening its wings for the first time.
Yoga, this morning, was just that, a means to find freedom from the fettering of my life, of the constraints I place on what could possibly happen and how it's going to happen, when, ultimately, I do not know the happenings of a second from now or more. At the end of class, I laid in savasana and reveled in the feeling of my body and the emptiness of mind and knew with complete certainty I could venture out into my day, meet with who I needed to meet with, and communicate with them openly and honestly and be at peace with whatever the outcome was.
Freedom is attainable and refreshing.
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