Starting Over

This past Saturday, I went to my first yoga class since I went to the class with the crystal singing bowls. It was also my first class since I decided that the teacher training program I was in was not for me. I must admit, I was running far, far away from my practice. The past few months have been so emotional for me that I didn’t want to process anymore. I wanted to just be and see what happened. I wanted time with my thoughts without the insights, the bubbling up and the reflective time. I was feeling a bit odd in my practice because I was starting to feel as if I was the only one that feels so much powerful emotion from the practice of yoga. I was feeling like I needed to get back to my own pace; I was feeling tired.

When I walked into the studio, it was jam packed with yogis excited to detox from the old and to breathe in the new. That was certainly why I showed up, I needed to put 2009 behind me, I needed to renew. I needed to get back in touch with my yoga and I needed it to be on my terms. We started the class with note cards and the teacher told us to write anything that bubbled up inside the cards as we practiced. I remember thinking to myself that the little card before me probably couldn’t fit all that might come up. It probably wouldn’t be large enough to fit all of the grief, the trials, the tribulations, the wondrous moments and deeply embedded patterns and grooves. I decided in that moment to write in my card once class was done and write the message that I felt I needed to walk away with.

We set out intentions and the practice began. It was a warm flow with lots of detoxifying twists with the longest warrior series in history. I was skimmed in a layer of salty sweat and surrounded by some of my favorite yogis. My ego and I went back and forth and the teacher reminded us about the soft edge and the hard edge and learning to honor both. It dawned on me that I was only in that class because I wanted to be and I looked around the room as all of my friends played with their edges. Some pushed on and some rested and I was reminded that the resting yogi is a yogi none the less.

I felt overcome by a this feeling of having my practice back, the practice I had been longing for since I started the teacher training but I also was overcome by my open heart. The practice ended with a long sweet savasana and my hand itched to write inside my card. When the time to just rest was over, I wrote “My Yoga, I am open, honor myself” and I knew that those were the words I was supposed to carry away from that practice and to walk into the new year with.

2009 was the longest and one of the hardest years of my life. I learned so much about myself but most importantly, I stopped being afraid to feel. I stopped running from life. I layed all my junk on the table and I examined it. I felt whatever came up and then, I learned to let it all go. So even though this year has been hard, it has also been my happiest. I’m sensitive, I’m emotional, I’m a little nutty but I am me and this past year taught me that I want to be nothing less and nothing more.

More on This Topic?

• Getting Real with My Mat
• Life Lesson # 4358610
• A Time and A Place
• Hippy, Dippy, Trippy
• Pushing Too Hard