A(nother) Lesson in Yoga

I am constantly gaining new insights and learnings. Not coincidentally this time (and this time) it happens to be from yoga. 

I go to yoga class Monday nights at 6:30. Because I love the teacher so much, I look forward to it. But you know... Monday evenings are not exactly the times I have the most energy. I usually work til about 5, and get home with just enough time to sit down and not want to get up.

But I do get up. 

On a recent Monday (I reckon it’s been a couple weeks now) the teacher, Annie, had us start lying down. Not atypical because as she is such an intuitive teacher, she feels that some Monday's can be hard and that we need time to get moving.

Anywho, we were lying there in our pose, and I was so relaxed as she talked to us.  So relaxed in fact that I fell in and out of sleep. Hearing her voice as if I was dreaming. Exhausted. And then the thought, " how the eff am I going to do an hour and a half of this class? I'm half asleep".

And as she turned us over, and onto our knees my fear became real. "I'm going to have to lay down this whole class. I'm too tired".

I continued to breathe. Cat. Cow. Inhale. Exhale. Feel your body. Feel the water in your body move. Extend your legs. Feel your palms on the earth. Up into downward dog. Inhale. Exhale. Repeat. Repeat.

Right leg up, bend your knee, open your hip. Breathe.

And so on and so on. Until, what do you know? I was standing. I was half-mooning. I was breathing and feeling my body.

I got through the hour and a half class without a hitch and ended up back in savasana. It felt different than the opening pose. I was awake. I was alert. 

I did it!. But how?

I listened to the prompts and I went through each pose feeling my body and connecting to myself...not thinking about the fact that I was tired. But rather being in the moment… knowing from previous experience that in a mere 90 minutes, a different version of me would be waiting.

I had no other choice. I made the decision to go to class and thus I made the commitment to "show up", as Annie would say. Which in and of itself is a Big Deal.

Each breath and every movement carried me through the moment. Life, after all, is just a string of many moments tied together.

And so, the lesson. I am always asking myself, my friends, "how? How will I get there? How will I get from lying down to standing up to balancing on one leg? How will xyz happen?"

And I gleaned the answer from that yoga class.

Sometimes I might not know how I'm gonna get to where I wanna go, but if I breathe, if I listen to the prompts (when there’s no teacher, it’s my own intuition;), and most importantly if I show up, after a while I will look back and I'll be able to see myself standing at the starting line.

If I have as much faith as possible that the string of moments will carry me to, at the very least, where I need to be, then, in the near future I will be balancing on my head. The future version of me will be awaiting my arrival. And I’ll see that there was no way I could've arrived anywhere else. 

It' reminds me of that saying "you don't need to see the whole staircase to take the first step”. Amen Sistah. A.men.

 And in the meantime, I might as well pack my suitcase and prepare for a hell of an adventure.

DO this Now: breathe. Seriously. Step away from the computer. Put down your phone. Go sit in a chair. Or on the floor. Set your timer. At least 3 minutes. And breathe. Focus on your breath. Notice if it's fast, slow, shallow, deep. Take deep cleansing inhales and exhales through your nose. Make each inhale and exhale last for 4 slow counts. 

And then this: Comment below about how you felt before you started breathing and after. I'm not kidding. Go do it now. No excuses. 

In music and love,
Dana

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