Natarajasana (King Dancer Pose)

It seems to be a shared experience among therapists, and probably other care workers, a client you haven’t seen in a long time suddenly pops into your thoughts and within the next day or so, calls to say they’d like to come see you again. It’s happened to me too often for me to consider it coincidental.

Jessica told us if our eyes were more powerful we’d be able to see each other not as separate objects and beings, but as constantly moving and exchanging atoms.  With that vision we’d perhaps not fight so hard against things that didn’t fit into our expectation of what is.

I’m imagining it is the same way with thoughts and intentions.  I set intentions on the mat to be open, to be loving, to be present and strong.  Sometimes I direct my intentions to others, wishing that we all feel peace.  In the same half hour I received a scathing email from an angry client in deep pain and a call from a client I haven’t seen in a year hoping to reconnect.  

In all things balance.

Paschimottana (Seated Forward Fold)

Last night I dreamed I was walking with a friend. I could tell she was upset with me and I said "tell me the things you hold back from saying." She told me I was all the things I fear most in myself, that I am selfish, self-righteous, insignificant...In the dream we hugged and I said "Sometimes I am all of those things."

My yoga teacher tells us to fold deeper and make space for everything that is.

Utthita Trikonasana (Triangle Pose)

I have chronically tight shoulders. Maiga, my instructor, attributes them to years of grad school, I know that years of stress and worry well preceded the yoga.  My practice for the past several months has been to open and stretch them, drop them from around my ears.

Today I learned something more about these tight muscles.  Maiga encouraged us to breathe into the back body and “Broaden your back and shoulders” and I immediately felt myself resist.  A memory came full into my mind of my mother saying to me with a mix of disappointment and pity that I had inherited her broad shoulders.  I was probably 13.  I was only just beginning to see my body through the lenses of others.  And I began to curl my shoulders in.  

Hunched over and curled in is a pose I’ve perfected over the past 40 years since that day.  I try to look small, when I’m feeling insecure or heavy or ugly, I pull them up and forward, hoping that they will resemble the petite bird-like collarbones I’ve always wished to have. And now Maiga was asking me to open them to their widest, broadest shape.  To breathe fully into what is present, what is mine.

I remember being able to carry my son on my shoulders on long walks, just the two of us. I remember offering my shoulder to grieving friends, crying babies and sleeping kittens.  …..

Tadasana (Mountain Pose)

In the summer, my yoga studio offers a pre-paid card that lasts from Memorial Day to Labor Day.  To someone with a regular practice of 5-6 days a week like I have been able to sustain, the discount is deep.  Classes are half or maybe even a third what I would pay if I paid per class.  As is often the case for things these days, people who need that kind of discount don’t always have the available money to purchase them, which is where I found myself the week the sale was announced.

Yoga is my therapy, my exercise and my spiritual grounding, a three-for-one if you will.  I question daily if it is a luxury I should just forgo in this stressful time of my life.  Certainly I could find the discipline to start a home practice, or watch YouTube videos, but I also have a community at the studio that helps me stay afloat.  I immediately feel my heart rate drop and the pains in my chest subside when I’ve come to the mat in this familiar place with the gifted and committed teachers there.

But there is absolutely no money in the budget for the summer card and I don’t have any lines of credit.  Paying the individual class rate is also not affordable.  I had to figure out a way to get the pre-paid deal.  So, I turned back to yoga for the solution.

Some nights I allow myself a little cry while I walk the dog.  I know that my situation, while precarious, is still worlds above most of the suffering people in the world so I only allow myself this little indulgence when I feel like I can ‘t breathe.  On this particular cry, I thought of my mother and called out for help.  When I rounded the corner, at the end of the block where I breathe and pull myself together to return to being a mother myself, I suddenly thought of the beads.

In yoga we learn that through letting go we gain new understanding and new possibilities.  My mother died 11 years ago and I have been holding on to her bead collection since the day we cleaned out her house.  I have made a few pieces here and there but I often found myself reluctant to even craft them into something new.  Seeing them in their bags, the way she had purchased them was comforting to me.  

Without a second thought, I bagged them into beautiful lots, photographed them and created a facebook page announcing that they would all be for sale on Sunday.  Towards the end of the scheduled time, after only a few bags had been sold, I got an email from a stranger asking if she could buy everything I had left and would I consider a discount.  It turned out this woman is a cancer survivor who makes jewelry to sell to raise money for cancer research.

Cancer took my mother.  

We agreed on a price, one that would get me what I needed to buy the yoga.  I loaded up her car with the beads and found some more things to toss into her bag for good measure.  Oddly enough, I didn’t feel a bit of loss.  I was lighter for having let them go and I will purchase the card this weekend.