And as I roll up my mat, pausing to silently thank the earth, my fellow students, my teacher and myself, I take that feeling with me, holding it close and letting it wrap itself around me again like an old quilt if it so chooses.
A week ago, I took my first CorePower Yoga class in seven months. Yes, my yoga mat and fairly regular practice traveled with me across the Atlantic, but I'll be honest. I usually lost interest in my own self-taught classes (ironic indeed) and would get bored around the twenty minute mark. So needless to say, I was a little nervous about my first C2 class in Portland. Sixty minutes of power vinyasa in a 100 degree room? Um, yeah. I thought I was going to die about halfway through. Sweat was pouring down my face into my eyes and up my nose when I went upside down. My legs were shaking. My arms were trembling. And my face was almost if not completely the color of a red delicious apple. But so not delicious.
I only found out later that Nattika's classes (Nattika being our instructor that day) are infamously hard. And the class wasn't sixty minutes like I was used to at the Pacific Beach studio but seventy-five. Granted, that's only a difference of fifteen minutes, but fifteen extra minutes of balancing poses and core strengtheners and inversions will make you want to curl up in a ball and cry if you don't pass out before you have the chance.
But shockingly, I survived the class and reestablished that sense of patience you must have with yourself on the mat. For the past however many months, all I've done is rush from one thing to the next, even if it's just tracking the thoughts racing through my mind. And for the first time in a long time, I quieted my brain and let myself dissolve into the rhythm of breath and movement. That divine energy found its way back to me in no time and I was dancing along to the music with the rest of the class. And after seven days of yoga, yoga, and more yoga, I've rediscovered a part of myself that I had misplaced back in San Diego. I trust myself again. And not only my body but my ability to make decisions, to know when to take a break and when to push forward. I trust myself to be true to that person I know I am because I have no reason not to be.
That's the magical thing about yoga. It can transform you in a matter of breaths even when you don't think you need any sort of transformation at all. It's about learning to be mindful in your practice on and off the mat, allowing that to guide you in this world that is distracting, consuming, and overwhelmingly stressful in every which way. And despite what you may think, yoga doesn't have to be some physically demanding "sport" that you hear so often about on TV or in trendy magazines. It can be as simple as sitting and taking a quiet moment for yourself, reconnecting to the "beginningless potential of all things," and remembering that a single moment holds the world. Maybe that sounds crazy to some, but I think we all need a little crazy in our lives sometimes. Especially if it ironically brings us peace.
In his book "Siddhartha" (a must read if you haven't already), Hermann Hesse writes,
"Above all, he learned to listen with a still heart, with a waiting open soul, without passion, without desire, without judgements, without opinions."
If only life was that simple, right? Well, maybe it can be. Sprinkling a little mindfulness into all of our days, in whichever way works best for you, can only serve to make us calmer people, better listeners, and wiser souls. Add a dash of contentment to the equation and I think you just might have something extraordinary.
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