Come On, It's Only 40 Days

A lot can happen on a forty-day journey with your family. Especially when you have no idea how you'll get from here to there.

[comeonitsonly40days]

Day 34:  Breathe Deeply, Then Cough

Ten minutes on the mat.  Just ten minutes, but it’s better than nothing as I keep telling myself (and as the doctor who inspired this process told the class I attended).  

I concentrated on my breathing for the whole ten minutes.  That’s something I never do on the mat, even though it’s the way all my teachers start their classes.  I don’t enjoy deep breathing exercises.  My dislike probably originates from my chronic bronchitis/asthma days, when all breathing was difficult.  The head cold and cough I’m still getting over made me realize that I have a deep fear of wheezing.  I haven’t wheezed for 40 years, but the trauma lingers on.  

So I focused on my breath for 10 minutes and, for all I know, blew out some actual physical crud lingering in my bronchioles and possibly even some emotional junk.  We’ll see what my lungs tell me on the mat tomorrow.

[comeonitsonly40days]

Day 33:

Twenty minutes on the mat.  I’m still easing myself back into the routine, definitely not pushing myself.  Excuses aside, however, I know I need to work harder, go deeper, sweat more than I have been sweating on the mat.  I saw all that in the mirror on vacation.

I prefer my at-home practice to classes.  At home, I take my time moving from one pose to the next and concentrate hard on what my body has to say.  In class, I often feel rushed and detached from my body.   But a yoga class offers something I can’t get at home:  A teacher’s corrections.  It’s clear to me now that I need a teacher’s eyes and hands on me, positioning my arms and making me achieve proper alignment.  So it’s back to class this week.

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Day 32: Through a Glass, Differently

Twenty-five minutes on the mat yesterday; 30 minutes today.  After taking two weeks off, I was pretty sure I’d be stiff getting into poses, that I’d taken at least one step backward.  But to my great surprise, I haven’t lost anything.

But I also don’t have as much as I thought.  While on vacation and staying in a hotel, I did my daily practice in front of a mirror--something I don’t do at home or even in yoga class.  That cruel mirror made me see that while cruising through my practice, my arms are often out of position, my back isn’t very straight, and my hips tend to get out of line.  I don’t look nearly as good in the mirror as I do in my head.  I didn’t even like the look of my face in my room’s mirror.  Everything looked so different when I found myself in different lighting and atmospheres.

Those Florida mirrors shook me up.  I wonder if they contributed to my failure to dive back onto the mat when I got home.  Oh well, I’m over them now.  So what if I don’t look like a real pro in down dog? So what if my arms tend to drift into very wrong positions?  I’ve got a long way to go, a lot of work to do, and that, apparently, is how Lent rolls.

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Day 31: Coming Back From the Dead

Here’s what happened.  On Day 17, I left for a four-day holiday with my family.  Because planes and hotels would be involved, I knew it would be tough to get in my 10 minutes on the mat.  But the benefits of a daily yoga practice were already making themselves felt and I was extremely determined. Over the first three days, I pulled off some mild heroics and got the job done. On the fourth day, I woke up feeling an unusual type of fatigue. By the time we’d flown home and I was back within arm’s reach of my beloved (albeit slightly worn and slippery) mat, I felt flattened.  I tried to muster up the spirit to do some gentle twists, but the flesh was just too weak.

The next 10 days were pretty much devoted to being sick--first with a gastrointestinal nightmare, then with aches, chills, and head-cold stuff.  Occasionally it occurred to me that a bit of yoga might speed the recovery process, but I barely had the energy to take care of life’s essentials much less unroll my mat.  I was truly was the walking dead, only I wasn’t even walking that much.  Feeling so sick was rough; browbeating myself for being such a lay-about was rougher.

A few days ago I began to feel better.  With my reclaimed wellness came a certain amount of bliss, a hefty dose of guilt over having blown my best-laid Lenten plans once again, and mounds of uncertainty over what to do with this blog.  I went back and forth for two days, then finally decided to confess my sins.  Facing my failure in words on a screen might, after all, be part of The Process.

It’s highly probably that I simply picked up a nasty bug while traveling.  Easy to do.  But I’m also weighing the possibility that the abrupt halt to my daily yoga practice caused my body to react angrily.  And then there’s the possibility that all my yoga twists and bends were doing such a good job of pushing toxins out of my body, of moving internal wastes and fluids around, that when I stopped, things went haywire.  Perhaps getting sick was a major detox that I myself had launched.  I know some natural health practitioners who believe colds and the flu should be embraced as effective releases of long-held, unhealthy toxins.  When our noses start draining and we’re coughing up gunk, our bodies are doing what needs to be done.  I just decided to accept my body-and-soul flattening illness as a really beautiful thing.

I haven’t done my minutes on the mat yet today because I’ve been so busy catching up with the rest of my life.  Clearly, putting my practice at the top of my agenda is a lesson I need to learn.  The other lesson, slowly penetrating my thick skull, is that I really need to give up the browbeating and simply accept the magical mysteries of my Lenten process. Go with the flow for chrissakes, B. 

And now it’s time for me to count all my healthy blessings and break a sweat.

[comeonitsonly40days]

Day 16: Making the Most of It

Fifteen minutes on the mat.  Once again, time management was an issue.  I had a lot to do today and got off to a slow start, had to play catch-up right up until now--bedtime.

I didn't have much time to spare when I finally hit the mat late in the afternoon, so I tried to make every minute count.  I decided from the start that Sun Salutations were on the agenda; the rest of the time I did what my body told me to do.

As I was working through my Sun Salutations, I realized that simple flow, done daily, might be enough to make a person extremely strong and flexible.  It touches all the bases and, if done at a decent speed, even gets the heart pumping.  Yoga in a nutshell.

[comeonitsonly40days]

Day 15: The Morning-After Mat

Twenty-five minutes on the mat.  It’s a total miracle that I even stepped on it.  I shoveled long and hard yesterday, then got up today and shoveled some more.  My whole body felt it.  If I weren’t feeling so good about not messing up a single day of Lent so far, I might have decided yoga was too much for these 62-year-old muscles and joints.

It was a gentle practice; I aimed to merely stretch out the muscles I’d been working the hardest.  And then a couple of easy flows.  I felt fine once I got going, but was constantly worrying about messing up some part of me by being over-zealous.

Tackling all that shoveling yesterday made me very grateful for the strength I’ve maintained throughout my life.  I had to push myself hard to move all that snow and, to be honest, cursed into the mighty wind more than a few times.  But by the end of the day, I’d met a physical challenge by mustering up some mental toughness and was rewarded with the endorphin high that sort of thing provides.

[comeonitsonly40days]

Day 14: Lenten Joints

Sixty minutes on the mat.  My longest practice since Lent began and I can chalk it up to the blizzard that was raging outside.  There were plenty of unpleasant household chores I could have knocked off, but it was much more pleasant on the mat.

Since I’ve been working my hip and shoulder joints pretty hard, I’m feeling them.  At first it was pain, now I’m just feeling them.  While in a deep bend today, it flashed through my mind that my joints are coming back to life.  It feels as though I’m clearing out debris, loosening tight ligaments, and kind of, sort of pushing my anatomy back into its original condition.

Anyway, that’s what I’m choosing to believe.  But when Lent is over in 26 days, we’ll see what flashes through my mind. 

[comeonitsonly40days]

Day 13: Ahimsa

Twenty-five minutes on the mat.  And I barely got that in because of bad time management.  I definitely can do better in that department.

I’ve been reading about the eight-limbed yoga path, specifically about one ethical aspect:  Ahimsa (non-harming).  It teaches us to not act violently, speak carelessly or maliciously, or think harmful thoughts.  That’s just one part of the first limb, but it feels like the work of a very devoted lifetime.  When I read about it, I feel weak-willed and incompetent.  Then I get on the mat and feel strong all over.  Somebody probably planned it that way.

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Day 12: An Unexpected Twist

Fifty minutes on the mat.  While working through some poses today, it occurred to me that each time I can’t do the full expression of a pose or are unable to go deeper in it than I did the day before, I feel disappointed in myself.  Twists, especially, keep giving me trouble because I lack flexibility in my back and hips.  Every day that I fail to twist a little further, I get down on myself.

My disappointment doesn’t haunt me and I never think about it as I go about my day.  But I noticed this morning that meeting the same old disappointments day after day feels counter-productive.  On the other hand, when some part of me gets a little looser, I enjoy a brief high.  

Now that I know meeting the same disappointments on the mat each day bums me out, I really ought to figure out a way to work turn the experience into something useful and healthy.  Making boons out of blockages might become Lent’s raison d’être for me.

[comeonitsonly40days]

Day 11: A Hip Has Its Say

Forty minutes on the mat. Then I walked four miles. No big deal in and of itself since I often walk further, but the temperature was 25 when I started, 22 by the time I got home. While walking, I usually get lost in my thoughts and the miles fly by.  Not this time.  Nothing flew by.  My frozen legs were barely walking toward the end of the final mile.

Then my left hip started acting up again.  Just a bit.  Again, not sure if it’s a real and growing problem, or if I just worked it too hard the past few days.  So went easy on it today.  Then I consulted Louise Hay’s book “You Can Heal Yourself,” learned that she believes hip problems stem from a fear of moving forward with some big life decision.  The helpful mantra she offers is, “I move forward in life with ease and with joy at every age.”  I’ll try it, but it might take work to get my hip to buy it.  And I wish Louise would come over, explain what my big life decision is.  

[comeonitsonly40days]

Day 10:  Stretching Body and/or Mind

Forty minutes on the mat.  Since Day 1, I’ve been trying to work my hips pretty hard because I’d been having pain in my left hip and was afraid serious arthritis was setting in.  I think I might be on the right track now because the pain is gone, replaced by soreness in both hips.  But it’s the kind of soreness that makes you appreciate the hard work you put in the day before.

The new sequence that I picked up from Yoga Journal has been giving my lower back a real workout.  It, too, is sore in a good way.  And I think that the gravel-y noise in my neck and shoulders--a sound that’s bugged me for years--is quieting down a bit.  It also is very possible that I’m imagining all of this.  If that’s the case, then 10 straight days of yoga might not be so fabulous for the body, but it sure sparks creativity.

[comeonitsonly40days]

Day 9:  Beer ‘n Roses

Forty-five minutes on the mat.  Days 3-7 found me nursing nagging aches and pains.  I didn't think I’d been pushing myself that hard, so began to worry that something else, like Lyme Disease, was going on.  Mostly because my husband recently was diagnosed with it.  But yesterday I woke up feeling no pain.  Then I got on the mat, tried a new sequence of poses I read about in Yoga Journal, and woke up today with an entirely different set of aches and pains.

Despite the wisdom of my years, I was dopey enough to think that once I got the yoga ball rolling, my Lenten experiment would become easier by the day.  But it’s dawning on me that it won’t all be beer ‘n roses, that every sweet little breakthrough will be accompanied by some sort of pain in the ass thing.  Or pain in some other place.

[comeonitsonly40days]

Day 8:  The 10-Minute Attitude

Thirty-five minutes on the mat.  I was trying to get a bunch of things done and, admittedly, also procrastinating about getting down to yoga when I noticed that the day was slipping away.  Then I remembered that I really and truly only needed to put in 10 minutes on the mat.  That made the “ordeal” seemed so manageable, I burst through my mental barriers and got it done.  I might start asking myself to do just 10 minutes of other things I really ought to do.

Hours after my practice yesterday, the lightbulb went off in my head and I realized I dislike doing poses that require reaching backwards.  This easily  might be attributable to my stiff shoulders and upper back.  But it also might be a sign that something’s going on inside my somewhat stiff mind.  My instincts tell me that if I keep working on poses that require backward reaching, I might figure out something juicy.

[comeonitsonly40days]

Day 7: Well, That’s One Week

Fifty minutes on the mat.  And a week straight of yoga.  I don’t think I’ve ever done yoga for that many days in a row.  Baby steps supposedly add up.  We’ll see.

Cutting myself some slack on the mat these days, not forcing myself to do my long-established, hour-long practice, seems to be affecting other parts of my life.  My parents believed in doing things right, if you’re gonna do them at all, and that attitude slowly trickled down to me.  But now I’m allowing myself to cut corners, to get bits and pieces of projects done instead of sticking to one thing until it can be well and truly crossed off the to-do list.  It feels reckless and wild--and more soul-satisfying than check marks.

[comeonitsonly40days]

Day 6: Perspective

Thirty-five minutes on the mat. Can’t remember exactly what my practice consisted of yesterday, but it was enough to gift me with some aching muscles today.  That hasn’t happened in a while, so good for me.

It has occurred to me that the yogi doc who claimed 10 minutes/day on the mat over a long period of time would bring about life change probably had in mind a longer period of time than 40 days.  So I’m preparing myself for very little to happen during Lent and to end up more or less the same as I started out.  I’m usually pretty good at keeping things in perspective, but am trying to be really good at it this time around.

[comeonitsonly40days]

Day 5: Unsure About Stuff

Forty-five minutes on the mat today.  That’s starting to feel like the right amount of time for a daily practice, but have to keep reminding myself that my Lenten resolution was merely to get in at least 10 minutes a day.  If I begin expecting more, I’m doomed.  That much I know.

My hips are a bit sore--from working them hard, I think (and pray).  Haven’t seen marked improvement in any particular pose, but getting on the mat stopped feeling like a chore.  Since Fat Tuesday, my sleep has been a series of starts and stops.  But I’ve felt energetic right up until bedtime.  At times my mind has seemed clearer, but then I’ll walk into a room, find myself unable to remember why I was there.  Not sure if any of this has to do with the yoga.

I’ve often heard that feeling unsure is the first step toward getting somewhere--emotionally.  That would be nice.

[comeonitsonly40days]

Day 4: Meriting a Mat

Forty-five minutes on the mat. Without thinking, dove right into my usual, hour-long practice.  Woke up to it about 15 minutes in and then got flexible, mixing up pose sequence, adding some new ones.  Time flew by.

Remembered several times during today’s practice what my body was like when I first came back to yoga, about five or six years ago.  The change is most noticeable during Warriors I and II because I can raise both arms freely overhead now, forearms even with ears.  My shoulders and upper back, still far from loose, almost do what’s asked of them.  Felt very grateful for small mercies.

Toward the end of the 45 minutes, noticed my mat has worn smooth in places. That’s not safe.  So I’ve earned a good-quality new one.  Another unexpected Cosmic surprise.