Recently, I was out meeting someone for the first time and trying to make a good impression. We were talking pretty easily about things and I was enjoying our conversation and finding some interesting connections in our talks. We decided to go grab some lunch and continue our discussions. Over lunch the talking flowed and my enjoyment continued. We decided to take a walk back by the park where we initially met and as we were walking my cute little sandals busted. (Pictured)
I was initially a little embarrassed and for a spilt second I was thinking “are you kidding me, this is happening now”. I very quickly (in a matter of seconds) realized there was nothing I could do in that moment but deal with it. I had to think about how I wanted to handle the situation as now in order to walk, my broke shoe was flapping in the wind with every step I took.
For anyone reading who is asking, what does this have to do with yoga, I’m glad you asked. Yoga is not just about moving your body around and being physical. Its about going so much deeper than the external skin. For me, its about much more and how I deal with things in the moment. In that moment, I did not have the luxury of time to think about how I wanted to handle it, so my ability to stay calm, not over think it or dramatize the situation and making a conscience choice to continue having a lovely time was available for me because of how I decided to handle it. Imagine another scenario where I might have gotten really upset, and been angry about the shoe, so much so that I decided to end my time with this friend. I did not do that and as I mentioned was able to keep it all in perspective. It’s only a shoe and at the end of the day for me the shoe is meaningless, but spending a lovely afternoon with a friend and having a great conversation is priceless.
I will end by saying this, if you think yoga is just about your external body, think about this, when your doing yoga poses and whether something does not feel right or you feel great about it, is that still your external body. Is that a choice about how to feel and your mind and body working together ( as they always do)? Yoga is not just about the physical practice for me, its about how I react to things in the moment. When I am doing the poses and it does not feel good, I stop and that is an effort of much more than the outer body. I could of course push it and hurt myself, but again that has nothing to do with the outer body. Yoga is about bringing it all together for me, outer and inner body and trying to live more in the moment about how things feel on the outside and the inside, its all one!