When You Need Yoga

I haven't been writing about yoga as much lately.  It hasn't been a conscious decision.  Someone who shall remain nameless teased me that TWEDP had turn into a yoga-exclusive blog.  Being a contrarian, I suppose my subconscious could be driving me to write about other things as a way to prove him wrong, but I don't even think that's the case.  For one thing, other stuff has been grabbing my attention.

The bigger issue is that yoga has been relatively tough for me lately.  I've been traveling a lot.  While I'm still keeping up with the physical practice of yoga, I'm doing so at times of the day to which my body isn't accustomed.  Mostly, though, the problem is stress.  On Monday, I move out of my apartment and into the great unknown.  The stress of moving and looking for a job has made asana practice, meditation, and mindful living much more difficult.  My muscles are tight as a drum, and even the best classes at the World's Greatest Yoga Studio fail to fully loosen them up.  Stress is also allowing old insecurities to manifest themselves much more easily, which makes living joy, equanimity, compassion, and kindness much more difficult.

...and I don't know how to make an artful transition to say what I want to say next, which is that I'm incredibly proud of myself.  I recognize how thoroughly terrified I am, and I am doing my best to work with that feeling to get through that feeling.  I'm still on my mat 4-5 times a week, even if I'm having a harder time hitting poses that I generally take for granted.  I'm still sitting down to mediate (almost) every night, even if calming the mind is impossible.  I'm still reading the Sutras (almost) every night before I go to bed.  Life has thrown some fairly significant obstacles at me, but I'm still here.  I'm still present.  I'm still mindful.

All of this makes me recall the guy who showed up for his first yoga class this past Monday.  Our instructor's profound philosophy towards beginner yoga can be summed up with the ancient yogic maxim "sink or swim," so this poor kid got a full-on FSY class.  As we were walking out, he was moving so slowly he could have been limping if I didn't know better, if I didn't know that feeling where every muscle in your body is clenched up and movement seems impossible.

And yet he had the biggest smile on his face.

Word up, kid.  If you keep showing up, so will I.