Tuesday, July 11, 2017

Urdhva-Padmasana





It feels wonderful to be back to yoga!  There is a definite difference from when I would try to resume my practice while I was with Joth, an energy blockage of some type.  Although I was performing the asana, I was not living to honor my higher self.  I guess I can’t really explain that, but I didn’t feel like me, I guess.  Now, it’s wonderful!  I have time for reading, and yoga, and eating healthy food, and I live in a clean environment that doesn’t bind up all of my energy into knots of immobile anxiety, I have meditated, taken the kids places – my life is AMAZING.  How silly I was to think this would be hard.  I did all my grieving while I was still in the relationship.


 


This past weekend, I took the kids to the library and was delighted to discover that I could get a library card.  I had movies that I never returned to a library in Kent county about 5 years ago, but they apparently didn’t show up so I was good to go!  I am so grateful!  So, I checked out a Kino Macgregor book about Ashtanga with the primary series, Yoga Mala by Pattabhi Jois, and another Ashtanga yoga and meditation book.  I read them all during the weekend and went back last night and got The Essential Vedanta.  This is an acceptable new addiction.  ;D


 


There was a party at Elderberry and I do feel slight twinges of missing out, but I know in my heart that sacrificing a party to do fun things with my kids was the right move. They don’t stay young forever, and I don’t think they would have enjoyed an EDM festival.  Plus, I’m not quite ready to see Ashes just yet.  Other than the library, I also took the kids to the beach, Leila Arboretum, and Petco.  We were trying to find the Humane Society to drop off our volunteer applications, but it is not in my car’s GPS and I couldn’t remember where it was.  I got directions for next time, though.


 


I have been persistently trying, to no avail, to locate Ashtanga classes anywhere near me.  There are some in Grand Rapids.  Also, I girl I know on Facebook – a sweet, quirky artist with a baby that I connected with through mutual festy friends – strangely had reached out to me, of all people, suggesting maybe we could get a place together in GR.  This is serendipitous, because I wanted to move back but couldn’t see a way to do that with this car payment because I can’t afford rent anywhere.  I thought I was stuck.  But she said that we and this single dad she knows could pool resources and get a place, and I can really see this working out!  When I was trying to move to Elderberry, I applied for every job in a 25 mile radius of Bangor and got no responses.  NONE.  Just last Friday, I applied for a few jobs in Grand Rapids and have already heard back from THREE!!!!  I completed the aptitude testing for one of them at the library last night.


 


Grand Rapids has such a better spiritual community, yoga community, music scene, night life, parenting resources, EVERYTHING.  I never appreciated GR like I should have when I was there; I took all of that stuff for granted and didn’t use any of it.  I won’t make that mistake again, I’m going to live life to the fullest!  I’m 35, but I feel like my life is just beginning.  And in a way, it truly is.


 


I was thinking about that while doing yoga last night.  I always make these observations in yoga that apply to life.  I was thinking about how it has been so long since I did the primary series, so it’s like starting over brand new.  Except I don’t have to go ALL the way back to the beginning, because of muscle memory and such, plus I have the poses mostly memorized.  I compared that to starting over now, in my life.  I didn’t have to go all the way to rock bottom this time, there are things that I have learned and what I lost/forgot is coming back to me more quickly because I’ve done this before.  I know which mistakes to avoid and I remember the way back up the path, so it’s going faster and it’s easier.  Plus, I don’t get discouraged as easily because I remember a time I couldn’t do those poses and thought I never would, but I did.  So now, I take heart, because I know they will come and what I am capable of.


 


What I’m focusing on this week is Surya Namaskaras (5 of each), the standing postures, and the closing sequence, just so I can perfect it before adding the middle part.  I haven’t quite worked up to waking up at 5 am to do yoga, for now I’m doing it in the evening.  But I figure it’s better that than not at all.  I did wake up at 5 today and got to work by 7 AM, effortlessly, painlessly.  So that’s progress in the right direction.  Also, I’m burning hot!  I’m usually a cold person, and I’m in an air conditioned office, so I think I must have stoked some fire within.  I am excited.



No comments:

Post a Comment