Day 7: I Learn By Going Where I Have To Go

This time last week I was just entertaining the idea of going back to yoga after almost a year's hiatus. I had no idea a 60-Day Challenge was beginning, and no notion that I would sign up. I did know that I needed to surprise my life in some way. Do something different enough and large enough that I would force myself to grow.

I have a terrific book I bought when I first began yoga five years ago. It's called "Meditations from the Mat" by Rolf Gates and Katrina Kenison. The structure of the book is daily reflections and there is a quote that precedes each one. They are essays on the yoga sutras peppered with Gates' own stories about his and his students' practices. And the following excerpt seemed a good way to sum up the week.

"I learn by going where I have to go." --Theodore Roethke

.... The truth is, we are all so very, very vulnerable. Life is as it is. .... The only thing we can control is our attitude. We have the choice of life or death, love or fear, in each moment. And we bear the responsibility for that choice in each moment. Nowhere is this more apparent that when we embark on a regular yoga practice. We set out to better ourselves, only to find legions of reasons to break our commitment to health. We say it is too difficult to make the hard choice today. And yet the obstacles in our path are the path. Each time we stretch beyond our resistance and our fear, we make a choice for life. And every time we choose life, we find that fear loses its grip on us. We all know more than we think we do, and we are stronger than we believe ourselves to be. We come to our mats, and to our lives, to learn by going where we have to go."

So after a week where is my practice? Today my left hip seems tighter now than it did a week ago, the outer part of my thighs are killing me, and my left knee hurt while going into fixed firm pose {a surprise since fixed firm is usually a lovely vacation for me}. I also went deep into both sets of camel {which felt glorious} and touched my thumbs to my forehead in paschimotthanasa. Happily my friend Shelley came home with me after class and we had lunch and caught up, but when she left I passed out for two hours, exhausted. And I am running yet another load of laundry. Again.

Every day is different. Every practice is different. I learn by going where I have to go.