A few weeks back I started doing restorative yoga and in that short span of time, what a difference. I’m not talking about suddenly having the perfect body after 3 weeks, but my view of it has changed.
The biggest difference has been to how I handle stress. I can go from zero to defcon 1 in milliseconds when I’m stressed and that kind of stress is not good. The simple act of conscious breathing has put a space between the trigger and the response. That space makes a difference between instantly reacting to someone grating my carrot and taking a minute to slow down and respond rationally. By working slower, more things got done with a lot less effort. It turns out that the things that stress me out are completely inconsequential in the grand scheme of things.
One yoga session focused on hip openers. Apparently we carry a lot of stress and emotional baggage in the hip and pelvic area so opening up your hips and the connective tissue in that area releases a lot of built up baggage. The class wasn’t particularly intense but the emotional and physical release after class was cathartic. I sobbed uncontrollably all the way home but couldn’t put my finger on the reason. By the time I got home I was fine again. That class made me look at my body differently.
Every single day our bodies keep us alive; functioning in the background, taking care of business while we bombard it with excess, toxins and negativity. Every cell in my body works for me and only me. In exchange for that, I pick away at every little imperfect detail berating every way it fails to live up to my warped expectation of perfection. Meanwhile it just chugs away, breathing, pumping blood, removing waste, protecting me from illness and a whole bunch of other stuff I don’t think about.
An impossible and perfect design, housing my soul, asking for very little in return. I’ve never appreciated how much my body does, yet I’ve been very quick to find all the things it can’t do. It can’t bend all the way down to put my head on my knees, it can’t fit into my skinny jeans. It has also healed every time I’ve damaged it; broken bones, shredded skin, all fixed. It has processed every piece of junk I’ve fed it and kept running when it should probably have called a time-out ages ago. It replaces all the bits that I keep snapping off. It’s a perfect system working to the best of its ability despite the constant negativity, neglect, stress and self-loathing that gets piled on.
It’s easy to focus on the flabby belly and wiggly arms but that serves no purpose. Shifting the focus to all the things it does and how much it has withstood over the years makes me want to treat it better; feed it better; love it better. My life will end when my body decides that it’s had enough of my shit so it’s probably wise to suck up to it and be nice.
Yoga has become a way of saying thank-you. Taking a slice of time each day to gently release the built up tension and stress has been the best decision I’ve made in years. Anything worth doing takes time but whether we make the effort, or whether we don’t, the time will pass anyway.