So I am needing to re-set. I need to really, really learn what is safe for me in this body. In a class where I can’t move at my own pace, I’m on high alert and it is stressful for me. Stressful yoga isn’t what I am going for. Home practice is where it is at for me right now. I can experiment with what works and what doesn’t. I don’t have to rush into a pose to keep up, not knowing how it will affect me later.
When I take the time to do my own thing I realize there really is so much I can do.
There was a time recently, before seeing my new PT, when I was forcing myself to do a Vinyasa flow, even though I didn’t really want to. I had so much resistance because it didn’t feel good. One day at the end of one of my defeating attempts, hands to prayer, I silently besieged, “Please, give me my practice back.” What I meant was give me joy in my practice again.
I felt so lost, and longed to love yoga as I once had. Doubt would sometimes creep in. Should I even be a teacher if I don’t love it? Am I a fraud? (But I absolutely DO love teaching yoga. I’ve never doubted that).
In the silence of my prayer, what I “heard” back was, “Your practice never left you. You left it.”
I had. I was hurting so often, I didn’t want to do it. It had lost its magic. Yoga had became forced, and not something I looked forward to. It was something I did because I am a teacher, because I should keep up with it, but not because I loved it.
With my new found body knowledge, and new modifications I am back on my mat, differently.
We have a lovely screened patio behind our house. That is where I am doing my personal practice these days. It is so beautiful and tropical. Five years into living in Florida I still can’t get over the weather, the foliage. I practice to the sound of the birds in the morning. Crickets and frogs at night. I take my time. I listen to my body. I don’t do things that will hurt me. Ahimsa. Do no harm.
I’m vigilant with my PT exercises and it feels so good to do them. They are simple, and don’t take a lot of time but the difference they make for my neck is profound.
I also walk a lot. I sometimes do Lauren Ohayan’s Restore Your Core videos (not as often as I should).
Love for my practice is starting to come back. For the first time in a long time, I feel enthusiasm.
And the most wonderful thing….I’m not in daily energy sucking physical pain. This is something I’d almost resigned myself to. It all feels quite vulnerable still, but I sense I am on the right track.
Yoga Writer 