There is something so attractive about a clean white t shirt, a blank sheet of paper, a single flower, a single drum beat, or a glass of clear ice water. We are naturally drawn to simplicity. our minds don't have to work so hard to appreciate, to sort, to decipher. By stripping away the distractions, we can focus on the essence of whatever it is.
Today's yoga practice was simple and quiet. No fancy maneuvers, no music, no rockstars. The things left out, made room for an appreciation, for stillness, for space to notice what we typically don't notice: our breath, our thoughts, our ego, our emotions.
Don't get the wrong idea. What today's practice was, was simply hard as shit. Some people walked out, some people rested, some people pushed so hard they probably popped blood vessels, some people cried and some people found their niche, their backdrop of who 'they' are. We all sweated our asses off and at times couldn't find our breath, but we all found our physical, mental or spiritual edge at one point or another. There is no room for laziness in Hot Vinyasa Yoga.
Its hard work to dive in, to be true to yourself, to take a knee when you know how to push harder, to push harder when you think you can't, to actually acknowledge your ego, or to feel compassion for yourself or someone you perceive to be causing you pain. Its hard too, to let emotions rise up and move through your body without labeling them, stopping them or tucking them elsewhere.
A friend came to me after class, eyes welling with tears, a lump in her throat because she wanted to cry so badly. She didn't know why, but it was there, and to stop the emotion is to do an injustice to yourself. She had tapped into something very deep, very sub-surface, something her intellect couldn't even understand. "Happiness is over-rated," she said. There are all these other wonderful feelings, like crying, that we stop short of experiencing because we are conditioned to do so. Shed a tear or let out a scream. It will do you as good as a deep belly laugh or maybe even years of therapy.
Yoga has a way of gracefully peeling back our layers of who we think we are and sometimes leaving us wondering, what just happened? At its core, its a simple practice, with simple tenets, but like anything good, it can get covered in layers of complicated movements, loud music and even our own ego. Guard your life, your energy and your yoga practice if you have one, from unnecessary distractions. You'll get sub-surface, to the richer deeper levels of you, much much quicker.
3 comments:
So, since yesterday my tears haven't completely surfaced. They are still there, maybe a little more yoga and they will burst out.
Some emotions are 'unpopular', nobody seems to want to have them. Nobody wants to feel sad, anxious, lonely... We tend to keep those emotions down under, we don't even want to acknowledge we have them. We label them as negative, as bad. But then, if we didn't feel sad we would never know what it is to feel happy.
one of my favorite sayings (and I am unsure who said this) is the light can not know itself except in the darkness. I add: Be unafraid to be the light, be unafraid to be the darkness because within each one presents an opportuntiy to discover more deeply your connection to all that is and all that you are as a human being.
I usually feel like crying after hot yoga at Sol as well. Only I feel a great sadness and I haven't figured out from where it's originating. I'm almost glad to leave because physically I hurt so much. But I don't think I want to go home either. Just thinking about it now has me almost in tears! This is powerful and unexpected stuff. Thank you for providing it!
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