Addicted to Yoga: An Analogy for Life

I don’t know what exactly called me to yoga this time around. I had tried yoga before. A really good friend of mine has done yoga for years. I have seen the transformation in her, especially as a fellow mother of three who has undergone three cesarean section operations. I have seen her stomach flatten out, her outlook on life stay upbeat even in hard times. And I always saw it as “cool, but I’m just not into it.” But over the last few months I have become fully addicted to yoga, and yoga has become an analogy for life to me.

“If this is part of your practice…”

The first thing I love about yoga, that absolutely applies to my life, is that every single one of the five teachers I have worked with so far has addressed her class this way: “if this is part of your practice.” The teacher will show us something, lead us slowly into a new position, a new pose, and then reassure us that we do not have to be there yet. In fact, we do not ever have to be there.

Try it, play with it, see how it feels. If it is too much, don’t do it. If you don’t like it, don’t incorporate it into your practice.

Yoga should be fun. Yoga should be something that you use to expand yourself, stretch yourself, push your limits a little bit harder, a little bit farther, in directions you want to go, directions that feel good to you, so that tomorrow you will see growth.

And your practice might be different from my practice. No. It will be different. We choose which yoga we prefer, and which poses and positions we want to focus on within that practice. It is the variety of life. And it is all good.

“You will see growth.”

And I always do see growth. I do yoga three times a week, three days in a row. And after I have been off for four days because of the rest of my life schedule, the first day I go back I can immediately see the difference. Immediately I can feel my body bending further, sinking deeper into poses. The growth is immediately recognizable, and it never fails me.

Perhaps this is one of the reason I have become addicted to yoga. In nothing else I have ever done have I seen such immediate growth.

“If you are huffing and puffing, frustrated and pushing too hard, you are not doing yoga.”

This was one of my favorite things a teacher said in a class recently. When I first started doing yoga regularly a few months ago, I would show up and go through the motions, but as each class went on, I realized that yoga was about breath, about absence of resistance, about perfectly hitting each pose, shoulders squared, relaxed posture, spine straight, hips facing forward. And as I tightened each pose, breathed consciously through each position and each flow in and out of poses, I have become more and more present on the mat.

I realized that, as my teacher said, I might be stretching or strengthening, but if I wasn’t fully present, intentionally directing the slow in and out of my breath, intentionally placing each pose, then I wasn’t doing yoga. And as I worked to ensure I was in fact doing yoga, showing up for myself, fully  present for this pose or position, staying in the moment for 75 minutes, I finally understood what zen was. Nothing else existed for those 75 minutes except me, my consciousness, and my body.

“Thank you for showing up for yourself today.”

It is a gift I give to myself each week, three times a week. It is an act of self love. Three times a week I show up for myself on the mat in class. I am eager to go, nothing can stop me from showing up in class, and I leave each class with a bounce in my step.

The benefits of yoga have spilled over into my everyday life. I am more present with my kids, more present with my work, and more present with my friends and family. And most importantly, I check in with myself to see how I feel in each experience and moment of life.

“Does this feel good?” I ask myself.

And if the answer is no, I move through it and out of it, and into something that does feel good. I take care of myself first.

And as a direct consequence, I take far better care of my loved ones.

Yoga and the Power of the Mind

In the end, what really drew me to yoga was my focus on the power of my own mind, on the power of my ability to do anything I want. It is funny that we accept this from strength training, from success stories of people overcoming harsh realities, from impossible feats of adventure, but we don’t see it in the everyday living of life.

So we accept that Jackie Robinson overcame segregation in a pre civil rights era America.

We accept that Dwayne Johnson lifts giant chains and tires from sheer strength and force of will.

We accept that Oprah Winfrey overcame a brutal abusive childhood to become one of the richest, most successful, most beloved women in the world.

But somehow we see those stories and all the ones like them as “other.”

Not me.

And what I love about yoga is that it reminds us just how capable we are of doing anything. Anything. It starts with reaching farther, sinking deeper, bending lower. It continues on through feeling stronger, feeling powerful, feeling capable.

Yoga in class three days a week has led me to yoga in my house each morning, before dawn, before the joyful noises of a full house begin to rise as each person wakes up. Yoga has led me to meditation, to finding my breath and my good feeling each morning before anything else can approach me.

“If you are vibrating, if you are shaking, that’s good. It means you are getting stronger.”

I had this experience in my last class a few days ago.

I was in prayer pose, feet together, palms together, standing straight up, and my teacher asked us to bend backward, reaching our hands up and over our heads, bending further and further backward.

My whole body was shaking, but I was holding the pose, I was focusing on my breathing, and I was bending farther.

Sweat was pouring from my body, dripping down my face, and I shook and vibrated as I got stronger and stronger.

It was the most simple and most exhilarating experience I have had in, well, maybe in forever.

In that moment I realized that this was the best analogy for life, and this was why I was so addicted to yoga.

Do the work, the mental work, of living your life, checking in with yourself, breathing.

And when it gets hard, ask yourself if you can push through it, or if you need to pull back, reevaluate, rest for a second.

“You are going to fall.”

This is the most humbling and empowering knowledge I have gained from yoga, that I apply to real life.

I am going to fall. I am going to “fail.”

And what an incredible realization it was for me to understand that failure is not what I thought it was.

Falling down is an opportunity to learn not only how to get back up but also how to avoid falling, at least in the same way, in the future.

We learn, often times even more, from falling than from never having fallen at all.

I am not perfect on day one, or day two, or day three, or year three.

And I am learning better every single day to embrace the wild within me, my inner being, my perfect imperfection.

There is always something new to learn, always a new pose to push through, always another way to fall, to get back up, to try again.

I will never get it wrong. And I will never get it done.

So, yea, that right there is why I am addicted to yoga.