I've been practicing yoga for several years now. I started my practice as a young single woman, merely out of college, living in the city of Los Angeles. I continued it even after my move across the country, into a new life, away from the city, with new set of priorities and a forever partner in life. I became pregnant, and throughout my pregnancy, I practiced yoga at home. Yoga became an even bigger part of my life when I became a Mom, when life was mostly spent at home with Jax and I needed even just a little bit of time to myself, to feel like myself and not as a Mom or me, as the wife, but just time to be with myself, and in my thoughts, acknowledging my body that has been my companion, but can now easily get neglected from care and focus that I once gave it as a dancer. In the past couple of years, I often find myself preferring to do my yoga practice away from home. For me, going to the gym or the yoga studio, also meant stepping out of my front door and heading towards something seemingly meaningful. It almost feels purposeful and I want, need that feeling more days than I can often admit out loud. I do enjoy yoga in a room full of people, for it honestly makes me feel like I have socialized, despite the inward attention to ourselves and the silence in the room. I found that, without the professional dance life, I used to be so immersed it, yoga has helped me hold unto my need to attend to my body. It keeps me engaged to the notion of movement, what it feels like to move, gracefully, fiercely and stay connected to my spirit as I always often was, through dancing. I miss dancing. I miss the physicality it requires out of my body. I miss the music. I miss the challenge. I miss the emotional expressiveness it entails. I miss the kind of constant escape it allows me to experience. Dancing is both a get away and a heart to heart confrontation with and for my soul. I miss dancing a lot! Yoga in the meantime, has become my sanctuary in so many ways. It isn't always exciting. At times, I have found myself unmotivated to practice, unchallenged, bored with sequences that may only require minor adjustments in my part to extinguish the disinterest, but like dance, I always seem to go back to wanting it, needing it, appreciating it and lately, perhaps more these days than before, I find myself inspired by it. I am not sure if it is because of the present changes in my life that I find myself motivated and dedicating more time to my yoga practice. Perhaps during these changes, I find myself gravitating more and more each day towards yoga because I feel as though, its' practice can be my constant. It can also be the new teachers I am being introduced to, living in this new place. So far, I have enjoyed their guidance and find myself connecting to their way of teaching. Whatever it is, my yoga practice these days, feels good. It is waking me up to the truth of my aliveness. It calms my thoughts, so I can actually comprehend it. They may be my thoughts, but I too, need time to reflect and understand them. Yoga gives me that kind of time, when I can sit or lay with my ideas, so that I may be able to acknowledge them, express them and occasionally, just and simply let go of them. It is during a yoga sequence, that I often times find myself, finally validating the emotions I have been feeling. Whether it is in an hour, half an hour or less, it may be the only quiet time these days, when thoughts can be lost and feelings honored, allowing my body and mind to simply flow with no sense of time or expectation, no sense of deliberateness or hesitation, to simply be in the moment. Yoga gives me the opportunity to show love for my physical being and to give my body the kind of attention, a mindful dancer would, by nurturing my weaknesses, challenging my strengths, by giving time and attention to the details of what my body may need, while giving light to the opportunities that may present itself when we attempt to see what limits us, and strive to go beyond those boundaries. Just in this past week, I stumbled upon several poems that have ignited my yoga practice and the yogi, in me. I specifically, would like to share this one, for this one makes me feel at peace with myself.
Excerpt from "Wild Geese" by Mary Oliver
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.
You are perfect in your wholeness.
Your wholeness includes your scars, your weaknesses, your mood swings,
the days of your life you'd rather pull the covers up over your head and stay in bed.
I know that I am not always passionate about my yoga practice, but these days, my yoga practice has inspired me and it has been generous to me.
