Busy Be, Busy Me

I've experienced a paradigm shift.

What was once a really challenging "thing to do" has been integrated into my lifestyle, full on.

When I purchased my 1-year unlimited pass at the Yoga Shala, I became mindful of the monetary cost. I created a spreadsheet to track how many visits I was making to the studio against the yearly fee, and comparing that to the adult drop-in rate. Then I began to think more about the benefits of using the pass to its utmost: practising every day.

I took a "vacation" of sorts to celebrate my 40th birthday. On my return I was exhausted - mentally, physically, emotionally. My vacation had been exciting and full of life experience, but hardly restful.

I returned to yoga class on the second of February tired, stiff, locked up and generally numb from my noggin to my toes, inside and out. The first class was excruciatingly painful. I backed off almost every pose, and skipped a lot of the vinyasas. At the end, however, I felt... OK - OK enough to want to go the next day, and the next.

Along came Friday. I went to a 6:45 class called "Restorative". When I entered the room, nothing was as it had been in any of the previous classes. All the students were lined up, yoga mats against the wall around the perimeter of the room. Each had a bolster and a couple foam blocks. I use the blocks regularly to lift my hip off the floor in some poses, but never had I used a bolster. All we did, for the whole class, was to use this bolster in one position or other to lie across and stretch... for an extended period of time. Legs up the wall, back flat on the mat, bolster positioned along the length of the spine. It caused my shoulders to move back, and my traps to open up. There wasn't anything athletic about this class, contrary to Ashtanga's principles... well, principles beyond mindfulness of the breath anyway.

I went to see Mom on my way home after class. She said,

"You've been to yoga!"

"Um... yah... how can you tell?"

"Your shoulders are level!"

Well, well, well...

When I got home, I created a bolster of my own out of a rolled up comforter. I slept on the thing that night, and with the exception of waking up once, it was a long, restful sleep. I woke in the morning with a stretched-out back, and level shoulders.

I've been going to class - be it lunch-time with Pat, or evenings with various instructors. Dana, who owns the studio, has mentioned how much she enjoys my coming to her Level 1 class on Wednesday evenings. She thinks I take a front-and-centre position in the room because I'm keen. Should I tell her it's because it minimizes the temptation for distraction when everyone else is BEHIND me? Literally, I can be in the room with 30 other people, and feel like I'm on my own - in my own space.

Speaking of Dana - I was on the Shala website checking class times for the weekend and decided to read some of the blurbs for the different teachers at the studio. I hadn't actually read Dana's entry, and something she wrote really hit home:

"Someone wise told me that with a regular practice of Ashtanga yoga, the qualities which do not serve us gradually fall away. I expect that someday in the near future I won't be so inclined towards sleeping in, drinking coffee and cursing like I sometimes (often) do. In the meantime, I get to my mat and enjoy such benefits as a calmer mind, a more compassionate heart, greater flexibility / strength and so much more." -Dana Blonde, 2008

That whole notion of "qualities which do not serve us gradually fall away" is something I'm experiencing already. I've found that in the last week of practice, I've felt better - physically, emotionally and mentally - and I'm making my way through that feeling of being tired (which happens to many people who take up regular, frequent exercise) to feeling more energized, focused and... calm.

My awareness of the paradigm shift I spoke of at the top of the entry occurred last night. At the beginning of class I sat in "Child's Resting Pose", set the pace of my breath, cleared my mind, and it hit me: I love myself first and foremost, and to finally turn my focus inward, toward caring for myself before anyone else was so dynamically different than what I'd believed my whole life.

I mentioned to Mom, yesterday over coffee, that the yoga studio is the first place ever that I've been able to learn and grow at my own pace - without a sense of urgency, without a sense of competition. We've created for ourselves a world full of time constraints, deadlines and worst of all we set up our lives to generate stress - perpetually.

SIDEBAR - Perhaps this is a topic more appropriately addressed at the Armchair, since it isn't directly yoga-related, but I'll touch on it briefly by asking a question: I wonder if it was the stress of having to compete with other people that caused me to go out on my own and pursue self-employment? It makes a certain amount of sense - I've never really LIKED living by other people's rules, and I've often found it difficult to comply because we're all measured with a one-size-fits-all measuring stick. I believe I decided to work for myself so I could operate by my own rules and make my own mistakes without adversely affecting others.

So... I've added yoga to my daily to-do list, and it's wonderful! I feel there's something good, nay, great looming on the horizon, and it's inspiring.

Namaste, peace.

Turtle out.