yoga diary - day nine

Woke up this morning a little early. I was taking my time getting out of bed when the phone started ringing. It was 7:00 am Ottawa time, 6:00 am according to every time-keeper I maintain. (I am staying on Central Time, don't ask) The Fed Ex guy wanted to know if my address was a mistake and then to inform me the TV would be arriving today.

Sounds like an average morning, right? Well, I have trouble with gifts. They make me feel abandoned. When I was a kid people gave gifts when they wanted to control me or didn't want to bother being with me. Over time I came to associate gifts and gestures of kindness with indifference and cruelty.

All of this means yoga this morning had a certain element of faking it until I make it. I don't want to be controlled by other people. I don't want to have these feelings about gifts. I don't want to get to a point where I resent my yoga practice but truth be told there is some of that mixed in every single time I go through the routine.

So I practiced half-consciously and it was entirely a physical workout. Harder than usual, in fact, because I went into it a little unwillingly.

Fact is, if I want to be comfortable doing anything else in the rest of my life, for the rest of my life, I am going to have to do at least this much yoga every single day for the rest of my life. It's not a New Year's resolution, it's a change of life. And if I am realistic, I have to admit, I am always going to wish I didn't have to do it. I went into this feeling like I was doing it to get to a goal but the goal is to be healthier - that means stepping it up is an option, actually it's probably going to be a necessity but stopping once I reach a plateau? That will never happen. Does it happen in life? I used to think so, now I'm not so sure.

Today I am fed up with Ottawa so that's not helping. It's snowing (still, again) and outside all there is to see are crows, asphalt, white sky and snow. I suppose I should see the humor in my being born in the winter and yet not interested in winter sports. It has been that way all my life. I'm not a winter person. Having to saddle-up in coat, boots, scarf, sweater, heavy socks, mitts, hat and bag full of just-in-case supplies, pockets full of tissues for the never-ending runny nose and the awareness that no matter what I do my fingers, toes and nose are still going to get burned by the cold every time I want to go outside is not ok with me. Still, here I am, in Canada in the absolute dead of winter and so it shall be for the next few months.

Lesson for the day? Yoga can't fix everything. You still have to go through the painful parts.

Maybe it's good that the TV arrived today.