yoga diary - entry 18

Did you know 18 is a homophone for life in Hebrew? That's why it's considered an auspicious number. Very often gifts of money will be given for a wedding, a graduation, a birthday or a Bar/Bat Mitzvah in multiples of 18 for that reason.

My birthday falls on the 18th, it may be simply ego but that feels a little blessed, I admit.

Today I let myself off the hook. I still did my regular practice but allowed myself to take the breaks I wanted and modify the poses I wanted as much as I wanted.

The thing is, I really want to be perfect at this. I want to be able to fold my chest right down to touch my knees and place my hands securely on the floor when I do. I want to be able to lift into Goddess Warrior with a lot of strength and not much effort and I want to progress to the most advanced poses too.

I pulled my left hamstring so as much as I may want to go speeding toward all of that, it's not happening right now and so today I decided rather than resent everything, I would just do the sequence from where I am (rather than where I want to be.)

Taught me a lot. For one thing it pushed out the anger at the man in question and replaced it with real forgiveness. Something that has, heretofore been foreign to me. I thought of two things: first, if I love him in any way, even as a wonderful experience I had once or a good friend or an interesting person, then why would I want rancor and bitterness to accompany him through life? And second, as long as I hang on to the heat of that anger and the pain, he is foremost in my mind.

That may be one of the reasons I was hanging on to it. Sad is much harder for me to bear than furious but I can say honestly, I love him because I loved him and I forgive him because we want happiness for those we love. We want to be good to them, not a scourge.

Big lesson. If I get nothing more out of yoga, that one makes it worth it for the long haul. Maybe I'll even be able to apply it to my father someday. Not going there today, not feeling the Freud vibe at all except in the Beethovenesque sense.

So I learned forgiveness. I know I'll forget it again but today, I know it.

The other thing I learned is that it's fine for me to do what I want and I don't have to be rigid and linear about it for it to be fine, useful or productive. Today, I pushed out some fear. Big time. That makes me happy. The practice was all about modifications.

I have also realized over the past week or so that my arms are a little shorter than they should be for my height. That sounds strange but I think it's true, all too often the sleeves on clothes are too long and when I am doing yoga and look at myself in the mirror compared to the instructor? That seems very apparent.

I need to modify some stances just to make them work without hurting myself. And the thing is this; when I accept that and work with it, I can do everything and reach whatever I aim for. When I don't? Everything is just that little bit out of reach and it is difficult, discouraging and maybe would never be possible for me to get what I am grasping at.

These are all good metaphors for my mental processes today.

Things are a bit busy this week. Will return to a more articulate, thorough flow of writing by friday, promise. (I feel like I have to use a little direct address these days as a few people have told me they are actually reading this thing. - the world is full of wonders...)