There are pieces of banana smooshed all over my yoga mat. My pink yoga mat with the hibiscus print and my spiritual name Srividya scrawled across the top in black magic marker. My pink yoga mat that accompanied me to the ashram for the first time and then across the oceans. The mat that endured my stinky sweaty Bikram yoga phase, and my prenatal cat-cows practiced with the most sacred of intentions. It is worn too thin and even has some holes peaking through. This mat has been with me through a divorce, six moves, several boyfriends, five jobs, and three karma yoga stays in paradise. Today there are pieces of banana smooshed all over it with bits of cinnamon toast rice cakes sticking to the moosh.
The baby woke up about 20 minutes into my practice this afternoon, so I moved her into the marine themed activity saucer right next to my pink yoga mat. Mirabai usually nurses as soon as she wakes up. Today I desperately wanted to practice longer, so I gave her a banana and a rice cake in hopes of distracting her. She proceeded to smash up the banana like play-dough and hand me the rice cake each time I opened up into warrior two. I was starving, so each time she handed it to me I took a bite and gave it back. She was delighted. When I moved on to some balancing postures and was no longer playing the rice cake game, she began to throw food at me. I tested her patience long enough to spend some time in shoulder-stand before I bowed to my baby and said Namaste.
I have struggled to keep up with my asana practice since I became a Mom last summer and it makes me angry. Angry at myself. I need my yoga practice now more than ever before. My 39 year old body is not easily "bouncing back" from pregnancy and my new mama brain is like a whole barrel of tequila swilling monkeys on vacation. Of course, finding time for yoga is also harder than it has ever been before. I know that every time I stray from consistently making time for my pink yoga mat, and my matching meditation cushion, that I regret it. I know that every time I return to my practice I feel relieved. This periodic dance between prioritizing my practice, and falling off the yoga wagon is infuriating and I have never completely understood it. How hard is it? Really? Swami Sivananda taught that you only need to practice three postures every day to maintain vibrant health: shoulder-stand, headstand, and forward bend. I should be able to find fifteen minutes at the end of the day to practice three asanas. The trouble is, I think I make it harder than that. I want an hour to practice, or I want nothing at all.
I am guilty of this "all or nothing" mentality in other areas of my life as well. It is a distinctly "UNyogi" like way of thinking. When our yoga practice is truly working, it should be about finding balance and practicing with ease. Not about pushing through to fulfill a prescribed metric. All too often when we push through to one extreme, the pendulum swings back in the other direction. Raja Dwesha. Likes and dislikes. Attraction and repulsion. When we live in these spaces of extremes, the opposite experience is always waiting.
I think this new Mama time is an opportunity to cultivate a new brand of acceptance and patience with myself. It is okay if I only get through 20 minutes of my practice. It is still worth doing. The yoga doesn't stop just because I fold up my pink mat. The yoga continues when I skip the spine strengthening asanas so I can go care for my baby girl. I am practicing mindfulness each time I take a breath and choose not to give in to exhaustion and react to a challenge at work. The yoga helps me let go of expectations as I navigate my co-parenting relationship with Mirabai's Dad.
It is hard to stay standing in half-moon pose while someone is throwing bananas at you. In fact, today I had to just laugh and fall out of the posture. I will try again tomorrow. What I am learning is that finding balance in my new life, and in my practice, is a richer opportunity for growth than a day long master class intensive on inverted postures. It is an invitation to find the sweet space in the middle that has always alluded me.
I have read that the three elements of balance are alignment, strength, and attention. I will strive to stay in alignment with the my highest purpose. I will build strength and be patient as I go back to asanas that have not been part of my practice for the last year. I will keep my attention focused in each moment that I do have to take care of my body and soul.
As I think about balance, two asanas that I am drawn to this week are Dancer, or Natarajasana, and Crow, or Bakasana. Natarajasana has always made me feel especially strong. There is something about this pose that just feels beautiful. If I have time for just one asana, this one can transform my spirit in 30 seconds or less. Crow pose was an asana that truly terrified me when I first encountered it. Crow pose taught me that a focused mind can overcome any perceived limitations of bodily strength. It is also a pose I stopped practicing towards the end of my pregnancy, and it is testing my patience with self as I introduce it back into my practice, and some days can't actually take flight as easefully as I once did.
Live life in all possible ways; don't choose one thing against the other, and don't try to be in the middle. Don't try to balance yourself - balance is not something that can be cultivated. Balance is something that comes out of experiencing all the dimensions o flife. Balance is something that happens; it is not something that can be brought about through your efforts. If you bring it through your efforts it will be false, forced. And you will remain tense, you will not be relaxed, because how can a person who is trying to remain balanced in the middle be relaxed? You will always be afraid that if you relax you may start moving to the left or to the right. You are bound to remain uptight, and to be uptight is to miss the whole opportunity, the whole gift of life.Don't be uptight. Don't live life according to principles. Live life in its totality, drink life in its totality! Yes, sometimes it tastes bitter - so what? That taste of bitterness will make you capable of tasting its sweetness. You will be able to appreciate the sweetness only if you have tasted its bitterness. One who knows not how to cry will not know how to laugh, either. One who cannot enjoy a deep laughter, a belly laugh, that person's tears will be crocodile tears. They cannot be true, they cannot be authentic.I don't teach the middle way, I teach the total way. Then a balance comes of its own accord, and then that balance has tremendous beauty and grace. You have not forced it, it has simply come. By moving gracefully to the left, to the right, in the middle, slowly a balance comes to you because you remain so unidentified. When sadness comes, you know it will pass, and when happiness comes you know that will pass, too. Nothing remains; everything passes by. The only thing that always abides is your witnessing. That witnessing brings balance. That witnessingis balance. "
Excerpt from "The Book of Understanding" by OSHO.
