Sometimes, you decide you must do something that is against your better judgment.
Ideally, these circumstances should not include going to yoga class. Not because it’s never a bad idea to go to yoga class — although that is the first thought that comes to my mind, even when, as now, I’m writing about why going to yoga class no matter what doesn’t always show the best judgment. No, the wiser part of me chides, if you are really practicing yoga throughout your life, you will recognize when you are just not up to an asana practice.
Say, for example, you are seven-and-a-half-months pregnant, your adductor muscles are killing you from the past three days of not-prenatal yoga, you have a cold that makes it impossible to breathe through your nose in downward facing dog, and you happen to be really, really, really tired because your two-year-old has a cold that seems to make it impossible for him to sleep through the night without awakening you so he can cough in your bed for the remaining four hours you were planning to sleep.
In these circumstances, a sane person might decide to take advantage of an unseasonably warm and sunny afternoon to take the dog for a walk. I, on the other hand, chose to jerk myself out of a well deserved nap at 3:30 and groggily stumble about finding a tank top that pretends to cover my belly before making it to the 4:00 yoga class at 4:05.
As I spread out my yoga mat in the one open space right in the front row, I noticed that it was hot. Often yoga class is hot. Often I enjoy a warm room. But I didn’t want to be hot on Friday at 4:05. And I didn’t particularly want to be modifying yoga pose after yoga pose because my belly is not only growing outward but to the sides as well. You try forward folding when no matter how far apart you place your legs you feel as if you are smooshing one of those gel-filled office stress toys, only from the inside.
In fact, the more I had to modify the poses and the more I felt disconnected because I was doing a whole lot of mouth-breathing, the more annoyed I became. Plainly, I decided, I had some kind of heretofore hidden plan to punish myself. And plainly I needed to be punished — for feeling the need to kick ass in yoga instead of relishing the very rare opportunity to gain weight and turn soft and round without feeling guilty about it.
Sinking steadily into a Jamie Lee Curtis-in-Perfect (1985, tagline: “John Travolta and Jamie Lee Curtis work up a sweat together!” http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089798/), punishing aerobics routine, I made one last attempt to salvage my yoga practice. I acknowledged my limitations. Grumpily, yes. As if shouting to the people behind me, “I’m pregnant! I can’t do a twisted arm balance! I can’t do any pose that involves lying on my belly, lying on my side, or turning upside down! I can’t do much in the way of core work! Or forward folds! Or just about anything the teacher is asking us to do at the moment!” — yes, indeed.
But, still, grumpy and aggressive or not, I did recognize that there were things my body couldn’t do.
And this, I slowly reminded myself, is part of yoga too. A part I am often loathe to acknowledge, especially during the two years I have spent trying to recover the glory days of my practice before my first pregnancy. But one that is, in fact, far, far more important than mastering the Level III poses. The same way there are things — your child, perhaps — that are more important than making up for the promotion you didn’t get because you took maternity leave.
Yoga is about accepting our limitations and seeing where they lead us, not about overcoming them.
Maybe, I surmised some time as the blessed end of class approached and this realization dawned, we should all be lucky enough to be the pregnant lady in yoga class sometimes so we have a really good excuse to excuse ourselves.
The Rewards of Accepting Your Limitations
As it turns out, it’s a good thing I was in the front row of class where my scowl remained hidden from all but the teacher, who wisely pretended not to see it.
As I was pulling on my shoes, the woman next to me turned and said, “You are amazing!”
Wow. Amazing was the last thing I was feeling.
“Yeah,” said another kind soul. “How do you do all that while you’re pregnant?”
It was a lovely moment of connection, as we discussed our pregnancies, the miracle of yoga, and why I had actually been feeling like it was finally time to give up the regular classes. (Note that I am going to one that starts two hours from now and take all I am about to say with an appropriate grain of salt.) This brief, friendly exchange let me out of the studio into the warm early evening with a big smile on my face.
Extra bonus: Once in my car, I took a look at that parking ticket I had acquired earlier in the day and saw that I did not owe the City of Asheville $35 as I had thought, but a mere $10 if I pay by February 7. Now, if that isn’t a reward from the Universe, I don’t know what is.
What I’m trying to say isn’t that good things will happen to you if only you drag your tired butt to yoga class. What I’m trying to convey is that, having made the choice to go to yoga class — stupid or not — I let it be what it was at that moment. Which entailed not only physical modifications, but a mental adjustment.
In short, I tried to make my practice about accepting my limitations, even in tiny little bursts of aha!-ness between bouts of grumpy scowling in the general direction of the teacher.
And that, believe it or not, is a pretty valuable lesson in both acceptance and practice — one I will no doubt have to learn again in a couple of hours. I know better than anyone that as today’s class progresses I will once again have trouble accepting my limitations when the teacher invites us to enter a pose I used to be able to do. And, once again, I will learn how to accept the fact that right now I can’t do it in small, forgiving increments, reminding myself that every little step forward is a step toward clarity.
A Bonus Lesson: Trusting Your Choices
As I drove the car toward the vet to pick up the dog from her teeth cleaning (we have two dogs, so the teeth cleaning thing was not an adequate reason for choosing yoga class over walking the dog), it occurred to me that I was able to learn something from my choice to go to class precisely because somewhere along the way I had given up chiding myself for being stupid enough to go to yoga when I was plainly too tired for it. I had, in other words, accepted my choice.
Maybe it wasn’t the ideal decision. Maybe it was fueled by an unchecked paranoia about body image and uncertainty about whether a 42-year-old butt can ever recover from a pregnancy. Maybe my ego is growing too used to being stroked by people telling me how wonderful it is that I am still practicing yoga. Maybe I am relishing a rather sick image of the woman who’s going to keep going to yoga class until she goes into labor during one.
I was never a particularly physically gifted child growing up, so I am entirely ready to believe that much of this is about being a Tough Chick, about proving something, about a completely non-yoga-like way of approaching my practice. And, yes, this does worry me.
In fact, it worried me mightily as I sweated and scowled and modified my way through Friday’s class. As I said, I began to chide myself for making this choice in the first place. I reminded myself that if I were really practicing yoga I would have continued on the nap my body needed. Or taken the dog with the clean teeth for a walk. Or read a book, something I know I will not be doing for many months to come after the baby arrives even though I can’t quite figure out how that happens. (Shouldn’t there be tons of time for reading when you are caring for an infant? I am hopeful I will laugh at myself later, though I suspect I will merely cry at the truth of the matter.)
Finally, however, as I saw how lucky I was to be pregnant and without any way to cheat myself out of the modifications my body demands, I also recognized that, hey, I made this choice, for better or worse. No going back, really. Even if I had suddenly rolled up my mat and skedaddled out of the studio, there was little time left to take a walk before picking up the dog with the dirty teeth and getting Jake from school. There was even less time for a nap. I could leave class if I needed to, but I had already made my choice.
This is a hard thing for me to accept sometimes, so I will repeat it: I had already made my choice.
How much time have I spent wishing I had made different choices, avoided mistakes, skipped over the potholes of guilt and regret and blaming myself for messing up? Law school, for instance — fifteen years in my past and not without some payoffs in the present. Or taking Spanish III instead of Drama in 10th grade. I don’t really know that choosing differently would have led my life down an easier, sunnier, happier path. I just like to think it would have.
Instead, I realized, as my fellow yoga students made me smile, as a ten-dollar parking ticket seemed like a mere “oh well” instead of a big, stupid, thirty-five dollar mistake, once you stop dwelling on what you imagine would have happened if you had chosen differently, you open yourself up to the gifts offered by the choice you did make.
In other words, don’t waste your energy worrying about whether you have made the right choice. Instead, embrace the choice you have made and let it carry you in a beautiful direction.
Even if that beautiful direction occasionally means questioning, once again, why exactly it is you feel you must continue to go to really hard yoga classes even as you approach the very real possibility that you will end up giving birth in one.
The Mental Practice of Yoga: Opening to the Present
As I’ve said before, I’m sure, it is often easier to experience the mental growth that comes with yoga by engaging in the physical practice of it. No more so than in learning to be in the present.
Most of the time, when we are dying to release a difficult asana, our minds automatically shoot forward in time, imagining how good it will feel to straighten that leg or curl into child’s pose and concurrently generating a little bit of anger at the teacher for taking so long to get us there. And once we do release, it’s kind of fun to look back and congratulate ourselves on sticking it out.
Then we learn to banish thoughts of “when will the teacher let me out of this pose?” and find that, actually, it’s a lot easier to just be in the pose when you’re not thinking about the time when you won’t be in it. And that the release can be rather euphoric, if you’re not busy thinking back to how miserable you were in the pose or worrying about what comes next.
My yoga practice, in short, is my crutch, my way of channeling life’s anxieties into a few hours of asana practice a week when I can practice the truths of yoga, an exorcism of my worst neuroses.
The opportunity I would like to offer here is simple: Try to embrace the present when you are not on your yoga mat. Engage in the practice of it. Let it melt out of your grasp the second you turn your mind to something new, and then experience it all over again.
Stop yourself at any moment during the day, and really take a look at where you are. And experience how lovely it is to trust that you are in just the right place.
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As I read this, I think about how lucky I am to be pregnant, even as I confront just how hard it is. I feel guilty writing about my pregnancy when I remember what it feels like to not be able to carry a pregnancy. And I feel determined not to admit that, yeah, I’m getting pretty uncomfortable these days.
But, I hope, there’s more to what I’m saying than what can be gleaned from actually experiencing pregnancy. I am hoping that we can all be the pregnant lady in yoga class in our ability to accept our limitations, whatever they might be.
Very insightful. Doing our best is really all that’s required, no one needs to be a super yoga momma.