Ahimsa

I recently felt/saw/experienced just how hard on myself I am. Twisting. My shoulders are going through some things right now, so I can’t weight-bear on my arms. But twists – I LOVE them (I also am twisty, so that helps …). Doing twists without my arms enabled me to see how hard I push. How much I use my arms as levers to wring (wrench) my spine to squeeze all my organs, so that the blood comes rushing back in. To stop the twist once I felt it in my shoulders changed everything for me. It brought it inside in a new way. Awareness. Kindness. Non-judgment. Today. xx

Step back

It really is amazing how much you can learn when you lay off yourself for a bit. Accepting a limitation, and instead of berating it, pushing to the limit of your comfort every day – to just really step back and lay off. For me, with my shoulder(s) it has taught me that it is ok to be where I am and that just because things aren’t what I expected or I’m not where I imagined I’d be, that there is still a lot to be gained and learned from where I am. I still don’t know exactly what is going on in my shoulders – structural, emotional, repetitive stress – or some combination of all three. But not practicing in the same way, allowing myself to not use them for a bit, and exploring what else can be done when not using them and staying with where I am has been a challenge but so far rewarding because – without this situation – I’d never have eased up on myself enough to explore these softer, more intimate spaces.

Teaching the teacher

I have a client who is also my teacher. A man who I have been seeing for bio-energetic work for over a year now – someone who has seen me through downs and ups (and the ordering of that was intentional), someone who knows me in ways I don’t know myself. Each time before I work with him I have a fleeting fear, that in the things that he knows more about than I do that there will be a dissonance with what we do together. And then we roll out the mat. Sit. Breathe. And it passes. And as we move through our time together, as we move through the poses he opens up in ways that only yoga can offer. And it is joyful. It is pure. It is peace. And when he feels it, I can not explain the feeling in me that I was able to bring something new to someone who has brought me so much. Gratitude.

Shoulder-as-instructor

Yesterday in a yoga class, I told the teacher about a weird metallic feeling I was having in the pit of my shoulder during certain poses. He “massaged” my deltoid, really got his fingers in there. With a knowing look, he simply said “it’s tight in there.” As if I didn’t know that … When I came home my shoulder and neck started to spasm. I couldn’t turn my head. There had been nothing unusual going on in there prior to that – it was just one of many places in my body where I held my “stuff.” And he came along with his thumb and said “no more” and I’ve been adjusting ever since … There was no class today because it is a moon-day – but I am sitting with not going tomorrow. To be gentle to myself. Not to push. To be present.