After seventy-two hours of hot lemons, overdosing on organic vegetables handpicked from our allotment at the top of the garden and blowing my own head off with Ayurveda studies, it was time to hit the Yoga mat and stretch.
It’s been quite a while since I was downward dogging so I decided to give this famous Yoga with Adrienne a go.
Thirty minutes of bending and stretching in front of the morning sun.
I’m not crying, I’m just making a lasagna….for one
As soon as I stopped the practice I cried.
This is kind of a big deal – ever since I was little, I’d do my best to bite my quivering bottom lip and stop the facial waterfalls.
In fact, I’m pretty sure I’m allergic to crying because my eyes swell up and I look like Quasimodo. Whenever I do let the floodgates open, it’s usually only one, two or three, dramatic tears rolling slowly down my left cheek – for some reason the right one only leaks when shit gets serious.
But after this Yoga practice, there were lots of tears trickling freely down my face in some sort of sentimental procession. They weren’t provoked by evil words, or nefarious actions, they were just the liquid form of my emotions that were squeezed out of my hip joints, up through my stomach and out of my tear ducts.
You cannot tell me Yoga isn’t powerful stuff.
I’m not crying, it’s just been raining on my face
I love that the it made me cry.
First of all it’s a huge tension release and I feel so much better for it. The migraine I had, and I very rarely get headaches, has completely vanished without a trace.
And secondly because it’s made me acknowledge and look into how I’m feeling, without masking over it like life is this big airy-fairy dream.
Even though it sounded hilariously pitiful when I exclaimed it over breakfast; it is quite weird not having a purpose.
It’s almost like I’m in between chapters in a book, that blank space after the full stop of the chapter before. That’s where I am and nobody can see me, I can’t even see myself. I’m just waiting impatiently for the universe to turn the next page.
A slightly melodramatic analogy but I like it.
We all need a purpose in life, and I’m pretty sure that features somewhere on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs or in a Tony Robbins speech.
I’m somebody who likes having stuff to do and throwing every drop of energy I have into doing that stuff. So whilst I love the unknown, I don’t love the limbo. I hate being chained to a desk that no longer deserves me. And right now I’m just watching the clock tick and the calendar pages flip until it’s the 19th August when I’m on a plane to the Balearics.
My tears dry on their own
So today, like Peter Pan and the Lost Boys would do, I’ve magic’d myself up a purpose – I’m going to understand a little bit more about my emotional yogic breakthrough.
A lot of people turn to Yoga for physical fitness, health, or even because they’ve heard it’s good for relaxation, but the ultimate purpose is spiritual development.
Whenever I say the word spiritual I do cringe at the cliché vision of my thirty-three year old self, quitting corporate life and off on a journey of self discovery. But then most clichés are true – what doesn’t kill you, does actually make you stronger and this is actually where I’m at. So deal with it.
Anyway, Yoga means union in Sanskrit and that is referring to the connection of the mind, the body and the soul. According to the tradition, we’re all made of five Koshas or Sheaths which make up our three bodies – the physical, the astral and the causal.
Basically put, the five Koshas are the physical body, the energy that flows throughout it, the cognitive brain, the wise mind and the enlightened soul.
Tears in Heaven
I’ve read somewhere that Western medicine was starting to research into the mind-body connection in the late nineteenth century but as antibiotics were introduced to the market, suddenly they shifted their focus to solely physical stuff.
It’s believable and I’m much more inclined to believe a five thousand year practice that I’ve physically, mentally and emotionally felt the benefits of than an industry monopolised by the biggest drug-dealers in the world.
My subtle body has come alive over the last six months and I’m so aware of it.
I can feel the blockages in my chakras. I can feel the emotion released from my joints when I get a massage. And the power of energy sharing from Reiki, for somebody who seriously doubted it beforehand, has been seriously mind-blowing.
I never want preach or try to teach, but I do want to share some of the things that I’m learning or experiencing and if they help even one dot on this planet (even if that dot is me), then it’s been worthwhile.
Namasté
may the divine in me honour the divine in you