I swear I’m not going to become a yoga blogger or anything like that. I only own one item of clothing from Lululemon, and I have yet to memorize any of the chants, so I just mouth them the way I mouthed the Nicene Creed in church for years.
But I’ve been going more and more. I like the constant striving for perfection (although my super-yogi friend Ashley tells me that’s actually not what yoga is about at all, which just further proves my earlier point about becoming a yoga blogger), so that appeals to the overachiever side of me; the teacher in me appreciates how easily all the poses can be differentiated for varying skill levels.
The last time I went, we worked on handstands, which I have yet to master. This is a bit frustrating for me, because of the aforementioned overachieving side, but also because it was something that was extremely simple to pull off when I was a kid. I wasn’t the only one experiencing difficulties, and the teacher stopped the class.
She explained how when you’re upside-down, your body goes into “fight or flight” mode, and your lower back locks up and your legs begin to flail. Once you can accept the strangeness of being upside-down, you can maintain the same posture that you would have normally, and that’s part of the secret of kicking up successfully.
And isn’t that just like everything else? I’ve had some disruptions to my routine lately, and it’s turned me into someone I don’t care for. I waver between dropping everything entirely and running away from the problem entirely, or going into bitch mode for reinforcement and defense. When I play both possible scenarios out in my head, neither makes me happy. Choosing either “fight” or “flight” is still cowardly, because both options preclude one from taking the risk to be emotionally vulnerable, to be in that strange, upside-down place that really is not that different from being right side up.
So the final reason why I like yoga isn’t necessarily so much about yoga teaching me anything brand-new about my life as it is a reminder of what I already know. And that is what I’ve come away with this week: everything you need to do in your life, you already know how to do. Any challenge which may face you down somewhere along the road, you are already equipped to overcome.
