Okay maybe not Dupree! though I think he would test my patience and that is a lesson in its self. Alas this is about my journey into Yoga and my resistance towards something new and ultimately about resisting my path and the fears that hold us back from so much potential.
I started Yoga because I had read an article that Yoga especially Vinyasa Yoga practice was good a relieving symptoms of PTSD and so my journey began into a regular practice at times I despised Yoga and thought why am I doing the same poses over and over two or three times a week. I found a friend who practiced Yoga and invited me to come along with her to a Bikram Yoga flow. There was no way I would have gone on my own with my fat, plump ass with all the Yogi Goddess bodies to compare myself too. Even though I struggled in the 105 degree heat my first lesson into Yoga was a beautiful and powerful experience.
When I went to Yoga practice I felt like I was home, I did not know why or how it made me feel so good but I was addicted to my Yoga practice and like any obsessed new student I could not get enough of my practice. Soon enough I found Bikram to hot for my European white body and started working my way around the Yoga studios when I came across one a few minutes walk from my house in Bend, Oregon called Namaspa.
As soon as I walked in to this small studio it was buzzing with people getting ready to practice. I felt out of my element and kept to myself and entered the practice room. Aah wooden floors, I have to say going to Bikram practice at times grossed me out with the carpet floors and people sweating into them, at times I would just close my eyes and pray I would not get some god awful foot fungus and so to see these wooden floors was a relief. I also noticed that there were no mirrors to compare myself with the regulars in the studios and I have to say I loved it that there were no mirrors in this studio because I hated my body and so looking at my flapping muscles try to flex themselves in the mirror would leave me hating myself more.
I had my first practice into Baron Baptiste Yoga practice and fell in love with the flow. For ninety minutes we flowed from one pose to another until we came to Shavasana. During that ninety minutes I thought of nothing and when we finished class I felt a deep sense of relaxation that for the first time in years I had no heart palpitations from PTSD and went home and slept peacefully and soundly. My night was not filled with a nightmare or waking up in the middle of the night no it was a rested sleep.
So my practice continued and slowly I began to loose weight, the aches in my body seemed to go away and I had a new energy about me. This Yoga practice of 5,000 years was changing me and there I stopped and grew afraid of the new person emerging out of her cocoon and so I made excuses to try and dislike my practice, it was the teaches, I was getting burned out, I had no time and so it went the resistance of my mind to change. My soul was now starting to have a voice, she had found her way through in my practice where the mind had no chance to disapprove as I was in the flow of my practice.
Finally after a year of resistance and trying to avoid the journey in front of me my soul simply opened up to me and showed me the journey ahead and that it was okay to leave behind the past and now it was time to just let go and make new connections into the unknown. So finally now in October I teach and practice my Yoga as if I am a beginner again, exploring and feeling a sense of laughter at my wobbly path. Yoga, how simple of a practice and how life changing.
By Sharon Page@ All Rights Reserved 2011
October 5, 2011
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