Wrestling With Yourself
Well here I am at 4:30 am, warm in my bed, and my alarm clock is going off, day 21 of 3o straight days of hot yoga finds me going to the 6 am class. Today is busy and to keep up with the 30 straight days of hot yoga, 6 am was the only time I could fit in. After getting up, I walked down to the studio, and walked in the studio, laid my mat down, and closed my eyes. Probably could’ve slept but felt really good that my discipline, focus, and passion is back in my life. Yoga has given me purpose. My intention for this blog when I started was to show that each of us can make a difference by changing ourselves, and that change can be difficult. Now I will admit, the world, can be a little crazy with wars, news, abuse against women and children, greed, etc… but it starts with us. So what can I do? I can get on my mat, and deal with things, with an open mind. I used to think that if you worried you cared about people, but now I understand, worry is a curse on people, it gets no one anywhere and makes things worse. It is bad karma. To arrive at that understanding I had to discover it within myself.
Yoga allows me the opportunity to discover who I am? What I am? And that is powerful, challenging, and also can be lots of fun. Today our teacher Joe explained that as you trust more, you flow more. I am finding that within my practice, I am trusting the breath, trusting here, and feeling into it. Listening to the body, and allowing the breath to flow into the space of the aches, pains, sorrows, disappointments, failures, success, abundance, etc…this life on the mat is a wonderful as it teaches about walking the walking. For as I learn on my mat, I take it into life and apply it. What does walking the walk mean? Simply showing up, speaking from your heart, be open, honest, and knowing that your word means something. Honoring yourself and others, seeing their divinity and yours. See? Not easy. Now we know why it is the road less traveled. Who wants to be in pain, hurt, tears, and yet that is the invitation. To keep opening up and trusting the flow of life. Even as things are ending.
After my divorce, I closed down the heart, closed down the flow, and treated myself unkindly inwardly with words, and so when others started treating unkindly I took it, I was so use to the inward punishment, I felt like I deserved it. I felt like a failure, I felt lots of stuff that I didn’t feel safe expressing. I wanted to be strong for my daughter, be strong for my audience, put on a good show, good face, and act like I could handle it. I did sometimes, but most days I was not good. Now I am coming up and rising. Thank goodness. There is something bigger.
I had to go through that time in my life to teach me, to help me see who I am today, to bless those in my life, to forgive, to learn to really love, to let go of the conditional and open open open up. To me, that is real strength, not putting people down, or power over people, or control, or judgement, those are tools to keep us closed off. So yes today I rise and shine. Opportunities abound. A new life is here and I am honored by the love of my family for their support, to my friends for their support, and to the biggest inspiration on the planet and my teacher my daughter Harper. Remember you can always hit restart, where ever you are. On to day 22…
David Matthew Brown- Learner
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In