Hokie-Pokie Yoga
Today was another spur of the moment action. I went to a 7am yoga class. The dog magically relieved himself faster than usual on our morning walk. I stuffed my feelings of being a bad "mom", got him back into his crate and left the house with 20min to spare. It ended up being one of the slowest classes of my LIFE. Level 2 no less. And as frustrated as I felt, breathing into my belly and just, well, sitting... I tried to allow myself to just be OK with it. Yes, it wasn't the warm flow type class I was looking for, but it wasn't bad. It wasn't a waste of time. There was nothing else I was supposed to be doing - I was right where I needed to be. I had shown up.The teacher spoke about the male aspect of our breath, the exhale. That the archetype was "protector / provider". We were going to add a little pause at the bottom of our exhale to honor that space. Whether our relationship with our father was good or bad we were focusing on our own ability to provide for and protect ourselves.Which made me think about my own destructive thought: "No one will help me". Of course, this isn't true, but in those tunnel-vision times of pure frustration and aloneness, it's all I can believe. And then thought how my good friend struggles with her own relationship with her parents and thinks "No one will take care of me". In each situation we not only have love and support in the outside world if we would just ask, but we fail to recognize our own abilities to help and care for ourselves each and every day.Ways I've helped myself before: asked for help, gave myself space, relaxed into a task, took a break, reread the directions... The list goes on and on. So it's important that I remind myself that I'm not only capable of helping myself, but that "help is not on the way" as Dave Farmer said in his podcast. It's a jarring thought. Damn, you mean I'm all alone with this? But we're not alone. We're capable - the power, the potential, is in within us already. I'm probably getting too hokie-pokie, but it's true.That's what it's all about ;)