I feel like I'm riding quickly on a stationary bike. Life and time force forward motion and yet I feel stagnant. I ride a wave back and forth between feeling OK, questioning why I feel OK, judging myself, and then not feeling OK. The human body is a powerful, powerful thing when we treat it right. That has been my course of action lately: treat my body well. Feed her. Exercise her. Quiet her. Keep her busy. Rest her. Give her vitamins. I have tricked my physical body into thinking I'm OK, and honestly, it's helping. But then I remember. It hurts to remember.
I took a Kundalini yoga class this morning with a friend. I set my intention: "Remember". At one point the teacher told the class that a true yogi can fall asleep in an instant. She has the power to quiet her mind into stillness in just moments. I was drifting off when she spoke the words. I realized that the yoga I've been doing over the past two and a half months has been the most self-serving and true that my practice has ever been.
Over the past year, I would often tell you I needed a new inspiration for my yoga practice. Yoga had taken a back seat to love, music, travel, and work. I would rather lay in bed with you than jump out of bed to get my practice in. I'd choose dancing to your band's show over an evening class. And when we would get to the studio, I would often practice without much passion. I focused on sticking a handstand, hitting every pose I saw the Instagram celebrity yogis doing, wanting my ass to look hot in yoga pants, or growing my 'fan-base'. I practiced for my ego with a side serving of peace-of-mind.
I searched for new teachers, new styles, new studios. You and I drove to Denver last summer to try out a new style of yoga. "I think I can get on this bandwagon," I told you after the practice. I was slightly inspired, but honestly, hardly. You preferred the tried and true practice that we did at our local studio. You practiced because it made you centered, strong, and energized. You practiced for the right reasons. I was in a rut and searching for something to call me back to my mat.
I was fully invested in the yoga lifestyle career-wise. I taught multiple times a week to a diligent student body. I worked eight to ten hours a day designing a national yoga and conscious-living magazine. I worked on side projects in the yoga industry: yoga apparel, assisting studios, attending workshops, teaching at festivals. But my heart wasn't really committed. My heart was committed to YOU.
The day you died I taught a class about nurturing those you love. It was one of my favorite classes I'd ever taught. You had been my inspiration. It was at noon. You died just over twelve hours later. I talked about how you had been under the weather lately. You were heartbroken and ill. I spoke about how it had been the first time I'd ever really, truly been able to take care of you. You often resisted letting others help. You liked to care for yourself. You were always so capable. But, those last couple days, I took care of you in a way I had never taken care of anyone. It was beautiful. It was sacred. I cradled you in my arms those days, the way you usually cradled me. You cried on my shoulder the way I had cried on yours. I made you meals and brought them to you in bed. I held your hand because you needed your hand to be held. Nurturing you felt natural. I felt powerful in that role. I felt needed. I felt loved and loving. I am so grateful I was able to step into that role, even if it was only for a short time. I also will never forget that class I taught. I was so happy, so complete, and so purposeful.
As fucked up as it sounds, your death was the kick in the ass I needed to reinvigorate my commitment to my practice. It has become my life-force. It didn't take a new teacher. It didn't take a new style of yoga. It didn't take being able to stand on my hands. It didn't take new followers on social media. It took loosing the thing that was most important to me. It wasn't worth it. But this is what life has offered. When you take out the largest piece of the puzzle, the other pieces have a new space to fill. My yoga practice – asana, meditation, self-inquiry, breathwork, and way of being – has been crucial in this process. It has saved my life.
In suffering, as in all facets of life, we have options. We can choose avoidance. Running away from our problems, keeping our head down, not confronting our feelings, not talking about it – I have tried this. It's stifling and not my nature. We can choose to numb. Temporarily soothing ourselves with drugs, alcohol, or other agents – I have also tried this. The highs aren't worth the lows. We can sit with the pain. Empty our agenda, be still, wallow, and marinate in loss – I have tried this. At times, it's necessary, but it's also self-harming. Or we can choose creation. Taking what we have learned from the situation, the memories, the love, and building from it with a sense of forward motion – I have tried this. It's exhausting and although I feel like I'm running in place, it serves me.
As I approach the three month mark of your departure from this plane, I no longer wake each morning reaching for you. I know that you are gone before I open my eyes now. I don't have traumatic visions every time I close my eyelids down. I also have a hard time remembering. It's as if my brain has put up a wall preventing me from focusing on the past as a defense mechanism, as a way to keep me safe. So I have to really sit still and set the intention: "Remember". Sometimes I let myself. And it really, really hurts. Other times I sit with the present breath, as my practice has taught me. Just. This. Breath. And I can keep moving and feeling OK.
Not happy. Not joyful. Not loved. Not complete. Not healed. But OK.
Showing posts with label asana. Show all posts
Showing posts with label asana. Show all posts
My practice
In the days after your death, my dear friend Natalia called me from Spain. She, along with her prayers, condolences, and love, told me, "Now is when your yoga practice really starts." Before I even got off the phone, I ridiculed her comment in the back of my mind. I thought to myself, 'I'm supposed to think about yoga, now!? My soul mate died and she tells me to do yoga?' And for one week, I didn't do yoga. And that was OK.
But after those seven days, my body started to mourn its practice. My back started to hurt and my lack of eating started to take its toll. I got dizzy spells. I threw up constantly, my brain was traumatized. My spine throbbed from laying in bed and rolling around in the fetal position. My body couldn't handle the grief I was inflicting on it. So, if only to ease the pain in my lumbar spine and encourage an appetite – I went back to yoga.
But what I've gotten from my yoga practice isn't just a prescription for my back pain, it's peace.
Five days after your death a bear came into our garage. He made my heart sing because you'd known I'd really wanted to see a bear – so I felt he was a sign from you. But he did something else too. He climbed up onto a bench and left muddy bear prints all over my yoga mat. I don't remember why my mat was out of the car that day, where it always lived, but it was. And I didn't notice the prints until I went to unroll it a couple days later. But now when I unroll my mat, I see those prints and those scratches, and I know that you're reminding me to practice.
You want me to practice my coming back to my breath – because my breath can't escape the now like my mind can. You want me to practice coming back to my body – because my body needs to be strong to support the loss of my heart. You want me to practice coming back to my drishti (my focus) – because I need supreme attention to recognize intuition. You want me to practice coming back home – home was with you, so I am now homeless – but through my yoga practice I'm reminded that home is actually inside of me. And since you are now infinite, you are here too.
When we met, you had never been to a yoga class. But you embodied the yogic limbs more than I certainly did. And while over the next year and ten months, I taught you asana – you taught me breath, you taught me stillness, you taught me peacefulness, you taught me moderation, you taught me self-study, you taught me compassion, you taught me to breathe, you taught me purity, you taught me awareness, you taught me truth, and you taught me to surrender. Here I was, new to town, and desperately searching for a teacher – when I had him right there all along. You were my teacher. And you were a sage.
Lately, as I've moved through my practice, I've felt a chill shudder over my skin. Maybe it's a whisper from you that's awakening the hairs on my body. I close my eyes and I think of you. My breath deepens as I run through the pages in my memory of our love. The closest I get to intimacy now is the touch of my teacher. I close my eyes and imagine a conduit, a gentle caress from you. It's a desperate place to be. My body doesn't understand you're gone. My body craves you, but I can't give you to her. So I give her my practice, the other thing she knows.
So I am alone on my mat. I am alone with my breath, though it used to ebb and flow with yours. I am alone with my dance, though I used to have a partner. I am alone in my thoughts, making space for you to come join me. I am alone in my body, fantasizing about when I used to press it to yours. But I am not alone in my surrender, because you are there too.
So now, I practice in sadness. I practice in a soulful search for a crevice of peace. I practice in solitude because even if I'm in a room full of breath, I can't hear yours. But in my practice, I commit to hunt for the collective union of breath, for that "Om" that embodies me and you and all of spirit.
But after those seven days, my body started to mourn its practice. My back started to hurt and my lack of eating started to take its toll. I got dizzy spells. I threw up constantly, my brain was traumatized. My spine throbbed from laying in bed and rolling around in the fetal position. My body couldn't handle the grief I was inflicting on it. So, if only to ease the pain in my lumbar spine and encourage an appetite – I went back to yoga.
But what I've gotten from my yoga practice isn't just a prescription for my back pain, it's peace.
Five days after your death a bear came into our garage. He made my heart sing because you'd known I'd really wanted to see a bear – so I felt he was a sign from you. But he did something else too. He climbed up onto a bench and left muddy bear prints all over my yoga mat. I don't remember why my mat was out of the car that day, where it always lived, but it was. And I didn't notice the prints until I went to unroll it a couple days later. But now when I unroll my mat, I see those prints and those scratches, and I know that you're reminding me to practice.
You want me to practice my coming back to my breath – because my breath can't escape the now like my mind can. You want me to practice coming back to my body – because my body needs to be strong to support the loss of my heart. You want me to practice coming back to my drishti (my focus) – because I need supreme attention to recognize intuition. You want me to practice coming back home – home was with you, so I am now homeless – but through my yoga practice I'm reminded that home is actually inside of me. And since you are now infinite, you are here too.
When we met, you had never been to a yoga class. But you embodied the yogic limbs more than I certainly did. And while over the next year and ten months, I taught you asana – you taught me breath, you taught me stillness, you taught me peacefulness, you taught me moderation, you taught me self-study, you taught me compassion, you taught me to breathe, you taught me purity, you taught me awareness, you taught me truth, and you taught me to surrender. Here I was, new to town, and desperately searching for a teacher – when I had him right there all along. You were my teacher. And you were a sage.
Lately, as I've moved through my practice, I've felt a chill shudder over my skin. Maybe it's a whisper from you that's awakening the hairs on my body. I close my eyes and I think of you. My breath deepens as I run through the pages in my memory of our love. The closest I get to intimacy now is the touch of my teacher. I close my eyes and imagine a conduit, a gentle caress from you. It's a desperate place to be. My body doesn't understand you're gone. My body craves you, but I can't give you to her. So I give her my practice, the other thing she knows.
So I am alone on my mat. I am alone with my breath, though it used to ebb and flow with yours. I am alone with my dance, though I used to have a partner. I am alone in my thoughts, making space for you to come join me. I am alone in my body, fantasizing about when I used to press it to yours. But I am not alone in my surrender, because you are there too.
So now, I practice in sadness. I practice in a soulful search for a crevice of peace. I practice in solitude because even if I'm in a room full of breath, I can't hear yours. But in my practice, I commit to hunt for the collective union of breath, for that "Om" that embodies me and you and all of spirit.
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