"...but I'm not givin' up! I'm just givin' in..."
--Florence and the Machine, Never Let Me Go
A woman walks into yoga class late -- she doesn't like the breathwork that the teacher leads the students through 10 minutes prior to starting asana practice -- so she prefers to skip the beginning of class. She draws out the process of stowing her belongings and unfurling her mat so that by the time she sits on the mat, the teacher is just starting to lead the students through asana. As she moves through the postures, her mind wanders to the pile of work on her office desk. She begins to compose an email in her mind during Downward Dog. Just as she's about to come into another pose, she spies her phone indicating that text messages have been received. She comes back into Child's Pose and surreptitiously checks the new texts. Class winds down and once the teacher leads everyone into Savasana, the woman quietly packs up her belongings and leaves. She's not a fan of lying around doing nothing and she's feeling the need to write down that email that she composed in her head earlier...
Have you been this yoga student? Do you know this yoga student? I do. This is a true story. The question is: did this woman give herself to her yoga practice?
Years ago I was in a relationship in which I got very little. I didn't realize it at the time. For years I felt like our relationship was fine, normal, balanced. It wasn't until I was out of the relationship for a while that I realized just how empty it was. Not too long after ending the relationship, I heard a song performed live and the words of the song -- about someone taking a lover for granted -- hit me and my eyes teared up. That's when I realized that I had been right all those years ago -- the relationship was balanced in that I didn't give much and didn't get much in return. That's when I started looking at those places in my life that didn't feel right and asked myself whether or not I was giving myself over to the person, place, or circumstance that I was dissatisfied with.
So in the little yoga tale above -- did the woman get anything from that yoga practice? How about you and your yoga practice -- do you give yourself over to the practice, do you receive from the practice, do you notice how the relationship between the two is symbiotic?
It's possible that something is missing...and what's missing could be you.
Namaste!
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