yoga

The Hunchback of Fort Saskatchewan


I cannot remember my Grandma R., my mother’s mother without recalling her rounded shoulders. She had what they used to call a “dowager’s hump”. Mom used to say that if anything about growing old could be avoided, she truly hoped acquiring a hump was one of them. However, she believed the hunchback look was hereditary (and judging by many of my cousins perhaps she is right) and that she would one day be as afflicted as her own mother.

Of course her fears turned out to be nonsense. The tendency to severe rounding of the shoulders might be inherited but it isn’t destiny. Not according to my yoga instructor and my massage therapist, both of whom harp at me constantly to “stop hunching!” A refrain my mother practiced as well as she preached incidentally.

But I write therefore I hunch. Read Full Article

T-shirt Friday goes Yogini


Even in the midst of turmoil, I still remembered my promise to you dear readers. Lacking a tee opportunity, I snapped a photo of myself before rushing off to yoga yesterday morning.

 

 

Okay, now I expect to see some t-shots on people’s blogs today and over the weekend. I am pretty sure there are more photogenic chests out there than mine.

I will be occupied today and tomorrow with the garage sale that Rob thought was a better idea than simply donating the crap items that we no longer need or use. Time will tell if he was correct and if Canadians are as rabid about garage sales as they are back in the U.S. (of course given the abject poverty of some many Americans at the moment, I bet we could have shipped everything to my garage sale queen BFF and made money – even after the shipping charges. But maybe not. According to what we read up here, Americans are getting ready for the return of the WPA and soup kitchens on every corner).

 

UPDATE: Dad is home and happy. He told my mother he is at peace and just grateful he doesn’t have some form of dementia because in his opinion that is the worst way to die. Mom insists that no one come home just yet.

“Your father and I need this time alone to sort through things and we just don’t need you right now.”

So there. Told me, eh?

Resistance is Futile


A writer I met through my blog mentioned in a conversation that her Yoga instructor was always reminding her to not resist (during a pose) but to give in to it.  Anyone who has taken a yoga class or practices it regularly will tell you that the more you resist relaxing into a pose, the harder and more painful that pose will be. I was thinking about this again during my Thursday yoga class. I have been practicing yoga since mid January now and am not a yogina by any means. Every class I am appalled to find yet another errant muscle that has been coasting along with minimal effort for far too long. My hamstrings being a perfect example of style without substance. As I attempted to coerce them into a response other than pain, I put my friend’s yoga instructor’s advice to work – again – and found that I could ease myself just a tad further into position.

“Quit resisting”

My friend uses that line, or something similar, on her children when they are rebelling against things that are good for them in the long run but not so much fun now. Reminds me a little of the Star Trek Next Gen line, “Resistance is futile” because often the things we fight hardest against are not evil Borg attempting to assimilate us, but change that is necessary due to altered circumstances in our lives.  Just the ordinary growth experiences that touch everyone’s lives sooner or later which sounds more innocent than they can sometimes be.

Ironically, during my time on the widow board I was given the very same advice that the yogina gave my friend. “Don’t resist.” Only in this instance it was grief I was being counseled to submit to. Good enough advice in the early months, but many widowed people don’t take it the next logical step which is not resisting your new reality. What they mean when advocating “non-resistance”  is surrender to the ever present undercurrent of sadness. Drowning really. No amount of sorrow however is going to change the fact that forward is the only direction in life. Time runs in one direction and does so with relentless disregard of whether or not a person is coming along willingly or being dragged like Lot’s Wife with both eyes on the past. 

I am going to close with a few passages from the Hip Tranquil Chick:

“while leading a retreat in costa rica last summer, we went to a popular butterfly garden and for the first time i saw a caterpiller emerge from its cocoon into a wet, wobbly butterfly. its next phase was to dry out its wings so it could fly. a truly remarkable sight.

since 1999 when tranquil space began, i have felt like a caterpiller on numerous occasions, struggling to dry my wings and fly. as we embark on this exciting new journey, i return to the image of the wet, wobbly butterfly. change is always scary, sexy, risky, and a constant state despite continual resistance to it.

in buddhism, the concept of impermanence is a gentle reminder that so much of suffering is brought on by resisting change. nothing is our lives is unchanging – our thoughts, emotions, work, relationships. so why the struggle and grasping for continual control? why do we stay in the cocoon?

in college i read that we regret more the things we don’t do than the things we do do. that statement serves as a gentle reminder every time i question emerging from a comfortable cocoon.”