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When your inner dialogue starts cursing in a yoga class...

Writer's picture: Emilee JohnsonEmilee Johnson

Tonight, coming to Eric’s class was a really interesting experience for me. I found myself frustrated about two-thirds  of the way through the class—found myself wanting to stop and rest. Not because I felt my body was fatigued, but because my mind was. I felt myself want to rest and give “me” a “break.” It’s hard to explain exactly why this is different from when I tell students to honor their bodies… and I think my desire to stop wasn’t coming from my body. No, my body wasn’t shaking or losing form. It was my mind telling me to stop. My mind wanted to sit down and rest. My mind wanted to stop performing and being in control of the movements.

 

But here’s the thing: that’s when it’s the right time to drop in to the meditation part. When you are hitting that wall and realizing that you just want to quit, instead, you tap into your yoga. You tap into your breath and your movement. You tap into the space that you use when you follow your exhale all the way down or when you expand fully into your breath. There’s something there in the movement of breath through the body. And when that is all you have left to focus on because the rest of the words and images coming to your mind take you away from the posture or pose of the practice because the inner voice is getting too loud, you sink a little deeper.

 

And in the last third, I found the magic. That is where the yoga happened.

 

Now, the caveat here is that my body was pretty physically well-rested and not overly taxed since it had been a while since I’ve done a yoga class or hike or anything outside of teaching yoga. I felt strong and able-bodied, if not distracted. I came to the class with my mind bustling with ideas and feelings and little dialogues that I needed to process. So then the game on my mat tonight was mental, not physical. And it wasn’t until about 2/3 of the way through the class that I was able to find the understanding I had come to cultivate.

 

If this doesn’t exactly make sense, I do apologize. I am trying to put into words here what kind of mental landscape I am creating when I move my body and my breath on my mat in a room with a bunch of other people. It’s complicated. It’s magical. And although it does involve yoga pants and downward dogs…. I find that Yoga is so much more than that.

 

Yoga is the cultivation of the mind as a tool, sharpening our agilities—mentally AND physically—so we can better navigate this world.

 

Thank you, Eric, for a wonderful class! And for my Satsang community for practicing next me!

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