I had a whole post written about the saga of my personal relationship with yoga and I accidentally deleted it. I am still frustrated and now it is 10 o'clock and I am writing instead of focusing solely on my quarantine cooking and watching young Skywalker become a Jedi knight.
The thing about these blogs is they give me an external source of accountability; you are holding me accountable. I said I was going to post everyday so here I am. This is not a literary masterpiece in the making, it is serving to organize the moments. It is also helping me remember and the insights I am gaining are surprising me.
As I was editing the yoga blog, I realized that I turned away from this whole world that had opened up to me through the practice. I was exposed to incredibly talented and wisend teachers, people with decades of experience and with compassion squarely at the center of their practice. I had a serious wealth of experiences over years ranging from a 21-day immersion yoga teacher training program at Kripalu, to holding new babies in a post natal yoga class to learning to fly on another body in acro-yoga to a week long, trauma-informed training at an ashram in the Bahamas. Yoga was generous and abundant and always patient. Every time I go back it still meets me where I am at.
But I let all that go, like I let all my furniture and my car Wifey go, because I didn’t know its worth. I did not know what it was worth to me because I didn’t feel worthy of anything. I mixed it up into a friendship, I just gave it to her. I put that relationship above my relationship with yoga so when it ended, it took yoga with it. I still think about that person and I realized that I still blame her for losing it. Around this time is when I started comedy. I refused to make the same mistake, and unconsciously, but also sort of consciously, decided not to make any friends in the scene. I couldn’t trust myself not to give it all away to them. There were some really cool and funny people, who I so badly wanted to be friends with and who reached out too but I just couldn’t. I was scared and comedy was a lifeline I knew I could not do without, so I kept my distance. I continued that when I moved to Boise and that maladaptation may be the reason I have stayed so long.. The first couple of years on the scene here in Boise were rough. Everyone hated each other and there was so much old bad blood it was impossible to know who to trust. That I think was just what I needed to do util I could feel secure with my relationship to comedy and so what it took me five years. Now I can have friends. And realizing I was still blaming someone else for losing my own relationship with yoga is like swallowing a big pill of personal responsibility and gives me no excuse not to do it. To not do it is to waste all that experience and turn away from the things that got me here.
I was always leaving because I was always left. How could I be expected to sty when everyone always left.
I’d like to start approaching writing and yoga and everything I do for that matter with the kind of reverence I approach comedy with. I want to listen carefully and give it my full attention. I want to wonder what I’ll learn and be receptive of the surprises it throws at me. I want to put my connection to it or them first. I want to put sleep first now. Goodnight and thank you for reading.
This yoga app is free until April 1st and I like it a lot.