Saturday, March 26, 2011

Life lessons from Yoga: Force

Every Friday I head to the local Lululemon shop and take a free yoga class. It's called vino and vinyasa and yes, I go to get the wine at the end... it's free! Like I'm going to pass that up!

As you remember (or probably not) last year I wrote a little somethin' somethin' about the Yoga as part of the P90X program.

I haven't done much Yoga since then, except for the past few weeks at Lululemon. Every week there is a new instructor and it's always a bit of an experience. 

The first week was great.
Fast paced, but easy enough that I could keep up and feel like I knew what was going on.

The second week was iffy.
Fast paced, but she started out with some Hinduism talk and it wasn't vibin' with me. So I prayed the whole time :) It was also a little more intense we held this pose:

for a few minutes at a time.

for someone without balance...it was a bit on the tough side.

you also have to realize that all of our mats are maybe half and inch apart... usually overlapping.
and yes, I did accidentally kick someone while doing this pose.
i. rock.

The third time around was intense.
Holy fast paced, and crampage batman!!! I of course decided to weight lift that morning and go on a light run and then do yoga... not my smartest move.
And other than an altercation with a creepy guy (thank goodness I had two good guy friends with me that stood up for me) it was good.

A man was teaching this time and he was hilarious! But he was also insanely insightful. During a particularly hard pose and vinyasa flow he stressed that we didn't have to do it.

simple as that.
who are we there to impress?
if we want to take it easy... why the heck not?

He also emphasized that we should be pushing our selves with ease and not force
When we try to force things in life how often do we get the results we are looking for?
When we force relationships, people, situations in life we are usually so exhausted that we can't even contribute to society how we want too.

Now, obviously this applies to Yoga... but it also applies to absolutely everything else in life as well. Why do we feel the need to force our way through life ? How absolutely exhausted are we making ourselves by doing this?

Today during my run, I was strugglin'. For some reason breathing just hasn't been happening and it's beyond frustrating. I didn't want to walk, but the more I thought about it I realized I didn't want to walk because I was forcing my run, forcing my breath, and forcing this idea that "runners' can't walk.

I then realized how utterly ridiculous this was and began to walk and suddenly felt beyond light. I was able to run the last 1.5 miles home breathing easy. I also came to some truth and realization about the 1/2 marathon coming up (which I'll cover later after my 12 miler).

Although it's been hard, and challenged me in ways I never thought possible I am actually EXCITED for yoga every week. I love that it ends my week and makes me focus on my feelings, thoughts, and stressors of the week. It helps me to release.

And now it helps to reframe how I get through life. am i forcing my way through or allowing myself to flow through life with ease.

What are you forcing in your life? How are you pushing yourself too far? And where can you maybe push yourself with ease and allow things to happen organically??



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