I’m going to be honest, it was either talk about my sexual identity or this.
I chose this because my wedding is next week, I’m full full full and I never talk about yoga on here.
So now you know. Moving on…
I had a yoga teacher friend who used to call me a butterfly in classes.
This was a polite way of saying my jittery ass couldn’t sit still.
For years I had a very hard time sitting with the postures and feeling the discomfort they would bring up for me.
Put me in pigeon and I could barely last for 20 seconds before I had to move around and diffuse the energy.
Because that’s what I was doing. I didn’t have the skills or the understanding to be with or even direct what I was feeling.
And I was a yoga teacher at the time.
There is great power when we can sit with what makes us uncomfortable. I ask my students to do this all of the time. Because while there are lots of thing in a yoga class that you can just opt out of because it’s too intense or makes you feel too uncomfortable, life often doesn’t offer that option.
So I now look at these moments in yoga as practice for the real shit that will come up.
The BIG emotions that we just need to breath into as opposed to flinging them on someone else or pushing them down so deeply it would take even a good therapist months if not years to help you find them.
There was this part in Fifty Shades of Grey (hold on give me a second, I swear it’s relevant) where, during a bdsm session, Christian tells Alexandra to be still and absorb the sensation.
This is what I’m actually talking about. Absorbing the sensation.
Also please note that Fifty Shades of Grey is a horrible representation of BDSM. There is WAY more communication, planning and consent then ever depicted. Please also note I read every single novel.
Anyways, when we can use our tools to be with and in some ways absorb the sensation we are feeling in an asana we can allow that energy to diffuse in a different way.
Maybe it’s with a deeper breath, or a sigh or complete surrender but with this is acceptance. Accepting the intense moment. Surrendering to it and allowing it to transform you. In large and small ways.
See? Yoga and BDSM aren’t all that different. Ok they are but you know what I mean.
So the next time you are in a posture and are feeling intense sensation (not pain, pain in a yoga posture is a good time to get out) see if you can absorb the sensation with breath and surrender instead of trying to fidget it out.
It could be the transformative experience you need at that moment and great practice for life.