This morning, I am wobbling around on a sprained ankle, a coffee lack, and a bit of frustration at the condition of my foot.
I am five mice in, restless due to this mouse invasion in my home and I am making breakfast. THEN it happens: I catch a fly with my bare hand. Thank you small epiphany, I needed you. It brought me back to my journey. To the REAL truth if you discipline yourself, your body, your emotions, your diet, your self-control, your full expression, your free spirit, you can make it to a place that you can find strength. Trust me, this is a hard lesson, but I learned it. On the inside I felt frustrated, overly run down and salty this morning! The noted frustration of not being able to get my hard cardio last night, lack of sleep due to this and the family of mice that have enjoyed my home, making a morning zombie out of me… BUT I remain focused and caught the fly, somewhere inside me it was instinct to zero in. Catching the fly was as easy and natural to me as yawning. This caught my attention. I on the inside just wanted to crawl back into bed… but what… there was some focus in there… who knew? Well, I knew. It was a lesson that drove me to me knees, much this past year.
I sat down at my kitchen table, moved the mouse trap and waited till the tea pot my mother gave me whistled. Just as I was able to catch the fly with my cat like reflexes.... on the outside I had created the cat like reaction, but how did I get to this place? The PLACE where I would be able to move past this sense of being overwhelmed on the inside with an outward expression of discipline. Here we go! A little bit on how I got here, this year.
I have been immersed in hot yoga, since I started grieving very hard the illness of my best friend and mother. To watch this suffering of my mother just hang on for YEARS has driven me face first, down, on my knees into hot yoga. The warmth of the room reminded me of being held, comforted so I was interested in that. Also, the heat was very useful in helping RE-establish a relationship of my lungs and my overall well-being. When I first started during my mom’s recovery to an epic open heart surgery, and battled the everyday that has become her path… late last winter… to lay still to me on a yoga matt drove me MAD. It has recently changed...I literally wanted to stand up and scream are you people BLIND, suffering is all over me. Go screw yourselves, you are all detached!!! ”I refused to lay down and be with myself and the whole time I could not lay still and I could not understand any of these people. I literally thought I may have found my “much madness” in the straight fact I couldn’t lie down for 5 minutes on my back, after an intense CORE work-out. Who the heck after doing such a hard work-out, can’t lie down? None other than me. I am certain this was my angry at death, stage. This balanced, kind well-established-decent woman could not lie on her back. that makes no sense. I had lost a sense of everything being ok and was new to this hot yoga and to this grief, to be honest. I started to find my drive to the yoga studio my time to cry. My place to be vulnerable. Where I could unravel and not have to be “on” all the time. Then I started to find on my yoga matt that I was forced to look at myself and to be honest, my place to weep and ironically fight with myself. I cried through every class for 6 months, every warrior one and warrior two, every arm balance I tried and failed, every downward dog, every push up. Then, as I continuously went every push up, every sit up every warrior two when I wanted to scream, things started to melt. I started to find that I could do anything I set my mind too despite being covered in grief. Love came. Anger melted. Hope stirred. I was standing in a room of 97 degrees doing intense things and not breaking. This re-connected me to courage. I know that I am brave. Then I became brave enough to keep going to yoga. I just needed an outward reminder to be brought inward. Hot yoga did this, and so much more. When I caught the fly, I remembered I learned this. Two weeks ago, I did my first crow. Last week, I did my first side arm balance. I am no longer weeping through my hot yoga practice. This week, I have already cycled 40 miles, to train for a 100 mile bike ride to benefit charity. I just got on a cycle bike this weekend. I tend to be overly ambitous. But I like it that way. I felt inspired to ride a 100 mile ride for charity, for a bucket list, for GLORY, really. GLORY fires me up. Through the practical practice of self discipline you can find a way to be balanced in circumstances that are trying. I think the character of a man is shown, as Martin Luther King said “The ultimate measure of a person is not where they stand in moments of comfort and convenience, but where the stand in times of challenge and controversy.” Isn’t that the truth! So I caught the fly, because the effect of my dedication to stay with it, of not giving up, changed me. I can catch the fly, with a sprained ankle because I learned how to be composed when all my insides were in utter chaos. To me, that’s something I learned in doing this hot yoga and being brave enough and broken enough to stay on the matt.
