Offering up your Yoga

I've been toying a lot with the idea of offering up my yoga practice to something.

There has been mention of this over the years, by certain yoga teachers or articles I read, or whatever. Very often a teacher will begin a class by asking you to set an intention. Prior to my yoga retreat experience, I recall having a bit of a hard time setting an intention. Or rather, not a hard time, but kind of a really basic and simplified method of choosing an intention. To the point that my intentions were kind of stupid, if you will (or at least that's how I feel in retrospect). I guess it's unfair to myself to call them stupid, but they were juvenile and shallow and things like "Ok, I'm gonna really focus on STRETCHING this class" or "Ok, I will try to remember to BREATHE". I guess these are proper intentions, and good physical practices, but I think I was missing the overall point, the part where yoga becomes more than just a physical thing and delves into the spiritual.

Somewhere within my first couple classes at Pura Vida, I chose a really basic intention/mantra, but I think it was really valuable. It was "Be receptive and be strong." I sort of chanted this to myself whenever I was having a tough moment in my yoga practice there, or whenever a teacher would come over to me and adjust me. So often I am inclined to argue with someone who adjusts me, and I mean that in a figurative sense, not just yoga. I like to be right and I hate to be wrong, so if someone corrects me or adjusts me in any capacity, I sort of swiftly give myself an excuse or an argument in my brain. I'm not an argumentative person, and I won't usually put it out there in the universe, but in my head I'm giving myself a reasoning so that I was right anyway and the other person is just naive to my rightness.

This time around though, I tried to really give myself over to my teachers and admit to myself that they knew more than me and were going to be right no matter what. So I was open to their adjustments, and through that I learned quite a bit about myself. One thing being that I am chronic hyperextender (not a real word) in my joints, and that is probably what's leading to all my crazy alignment problems in my hips, and etc. etc. and basically I am just being LAZY because at my first yoga class I was like, "Ooh! I am bendy! I am flexible! I can almost do a split!' and have banked on that throughout all my classes since, and now that I'm aware of this issue I just keep realizing how fucking laaaaazy I am and just adding a slight microbend to every joint is making my muscle soooooooo sore because I'm actually using them this time around.

Wow, this post was about offering up a yoga practice to someone, wasn't it?

I guess the point is that a lot of good can come from setting an intention. And sometimes yoga teachers will specify that you should think of someone who needs something in their life, or someone you feel you've been false with, or something along those lines. I've often heard those words during a yoga class and a couple of specific people popped in my head right away (for the sake of the people that read this blog, I won't be specific) and I've thought of those people throughout the rest of a yoga class and whatnot. But I'm not sure if it was ever genuine before, for some reason I think it was on a more shallow level as well (along the same lines as my intentions evolving), where I was simply thinking about that person.

In "Eat, Pray, Love", Liz Gilbert ends up doing some offering of her own, but in the context of a meditation practice. She kind of talks about giving herself over to that moment and thinking really fully about that person and what they need and what she wants to give to them and the love she has for them etc. etc. and then she often talks about the aftermath and what comes from that practice offering. And while I'm enjoying the book, sometimes things seem a little prepackaged and perfect, how they work out for her, and how actual tangible things come from her prayers or thoughts. But because I'm in this sort of open and receptive (ooh, full circle) mindset, I'm trying to believe that if I am genuine in my offerings, maybe things will come my way as well. Or, if you take a more rational and not so crunchy approach, coincidences will happen and I'll connect them and get all excited and continue to live my life in my crunchy way because it makes me happy.

On Saturday, in Cristy's class, she asked us to offer up our yoga practice that afternoon to the teachers in our lives. We did some chanting re: that subject (not that we really knew what we were chanting, but I'm told it had to do with teachers) and then some meditating on it as well. She talked about thanking any teacher in our life, including those hidden teachers, maybe even those we've had negative experiences with - anyone that we learned something from. For a variety of reasons that may or may not include an idiotic text message that I received at 4 AM the night before after two months of silence, the main person popping into my head was my ex-something of recent months. So, against all rational thoughts in my mind, I chose to thank him throughout my practice. I really focused on the things I've gained from that mess of an experience during that hour and a half, and I tried to identify specific improvements I've made that stem from that. It was difficult, but I came up with a few. And it was a great class. And I was really sincere and genuine in my thoughts.

Now, I'm not sure if this has anything to do with it, and I guess it is actually sort of embarrassing after I spent an hour and a half sending out "thank you" vibes to him, but we ended up in an all-out-text-message-brawl that night. HOWEVER, I would like to say that I had the last word in that brawl, and it felt really good to send that message (which I will NOT transcribe on this blog), and to be really really quite honest, I feel totally and completely at peace with that situation. I SWEAR!

And maybe that has something to do with my offering to him.

Or maybe not. You can decide.

But I am going to keep trying to be genuine in these offerings.

On a more serious note, yesterday's yoga class I decided to focus on my job hunt, or the job hunting gods, or something like that. I was about to run out the door to a sure-to-be-small class at Sankalpah, but I was a tiny bit late due to job hunting, and I was stressed and I just realized I did not really want a serious yoga practice that day. Or to be one of a few in a class, or to chant or anything. Maybe this makes me a bad yogini, but I was just being honest with myself. So I decided to chill out for another hour so, continue applying to jobs, then head over to Yoga to the People where I could disappear in the back of the class and push myself as much as I felt like in the moment. So I did that, and I despite what I expected to happen, I actually had a pretty intense class. I really tried to go deep in the poses, lower in my warriors and more stretched into my side bends and twists.

And throughout I kind of kept telling myself to endure and to be strong and to breathe and I would get through it. And at the same time, I kept telling myself - if I can do this, then I can endure and get through this job hunt. And if I emerge victorious from this yoga class, then I'll emerge victorious with a job. Right? Right?

It helped. A lot. Lying in pigeon pose, I thought of my post about hip openers the other day, and about the pain and emotions that are held in our hips, and how I've been so frustrated with trying to find a job and just stressed about my apartment situation and whatnot, and I actually found myself getting super emotional, more than I have ever in pigeon pose. I came out of it pretty soon after because I couldn't really stand it, but the other side was easier, and I just focused on the breathing and focused on the job hunt and the fact that I know I'll get through it somehow, and before I knew it that side was over.

So I emerged from that class feeling pretty positive about it all. It remains to be seen if anything comes from it, but we'll see. And I'm going to keep experimenting with this idea, because it's interesting and it doesn't hurt anyone, right? That is, unless you're my ex-something. But that's just a whole other story.