March 8, 2015

An experienced yoga student recently asked me this: “why is it when life happens with its fears, worries, pains, chaos … that I get away from the asanas?” Sound familiar? It certainly did to me and I think it is a question many yoga practitioners encounter at some point on the path.

For many years, I believed my relationship to yoga was tied to my asana practice. I thought a disciplined practice meant asana six days a week for an hour and a half fifty-two weeks a year. There seemed to be an expectation of this for the true yogi. Under this premise, I beat myself up when I didn’t practice, regardless of the reason. I criticized, judged and sentenced myself as unworthy.

Through the reflection years of practice affords, I have come to believe something different. I have a loving, disciplined, engaged and consistent relationship to yoga regardless of my asana practice. My asana practice may ebb and flow with the ups and downs that life brings and yet the way in which I engage with all of those times is my yoga practice. I make my life my yoga. And uncertainty is a part of life.

The month of January was challenging and I felt uncertain, lacking confidence and no longer trusting in my intuitive guidance. I doubted, wondered and questioned. I did practice, but less, differently and with frustration that it was not “helping.” And then at some point, things changed. My feelings shifted. I felt clearer and the sense of creativity and possibility appeared – somewhat ghost-like at first but still present. Did my more consistent asana practice help? Maybe …certainly I could feel better post-practice but it didn’t always last. Perhaps, I needed a certain amount of time. Perhaps there are times when we actually need to not practice so much. Maybe there are times when we have to let things settle or emerge, to recalibrate in some way. Pema Chodron says it like this: “To be fully alive, fully human and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest.” Maybe these are not the moments for asana. Maybe these are the moments we are just trying to get our footing (or our wings). And certainly through this time, I was living my yoga – reflecting, waitings, listening, trusting.

I do know that now I also delight in the times my asana practice is flowing. I acknowledge these times with joy. You know, the days when it is easy to unroll the mat (which everyone knows is the hardest part of the practice), where I venture into myself with openness, confidence and trust and I explore the edges of my ability without judgement or doom. And I store up these practices for the moments when I am no longer held in the nest and I build up my trust that the process needed to be fully alive is worth every moment of discomfort. I practice for all that is coming and I live my yoga through the times on my mat and off.