Things are coming out when you least expect them to do so.
I was on my mat yesterday evening. Slowly doing my practice. I was moving with care and being kind to how I was feeling in that particular moment. My lady days have not been too easy this month and I was feeling quite fragile and sensitive. So I decided to have a more soft approach to the practice too. In the end isn’t that what yoga is all about?
You can choose to practice an Ashtanga series with an attitude to punish yourself and kill yourself on the mat or you can choose to do it with love, care and compassion. But yoga is not about killing yourself on the mat, nor punishing your body to go to places where it is not yet ready for. Yoga is about treating yourself and others with love, respect and kindness.
So the soft and sensitive moments are a good teacher to reveal more about the real yoga.
Despite the fact I was not at my best and I wanted to slow down the practice, the moment I started with Ekam, something inside me told me that choosing an Ashtanga practice today was a good idea. I will just continue and see how I feel. If I might need to do half of the series or less, I will just do so. No expectations. No worries. Just practice.
I finished all of the standing postures, then I got to the sitting ones. Pascimottanasana always feels so good and humble. I feel like I let go of everything in that posture and just surrender and relax. It makes me feel vulnerable and calm, so calm. There is so much quietness in it. I continued with Purvotanasana, Ardha Badha, Tryanga Mukha, Janu Sirsasana A…B already eyes in tears. All of a sudden my mind traveled back in time. I was in that moment in October 2013 at that bus station in Deva, coming from Oradea. All of a sudden I see his smiling face and eyes looking at me with so much love. That was the last time my dad came to pick me up from that bus station, the last time that I went home and he was waiting for me… impatiently and lovingly waiting.
I don’t know why I had this image in the middle of practice yesterday. I didn’t even think about him yesterday.
Flowing from one posture to the next while feeling the tears going out of my eyes and some pain wanting to get out from my throat and chest…that was maybe just what I needed yesterday. I miss you tati! Yesterday, you were with me on my yoga mat. And you were smiling! That real, honest, child-like smile of yours. And those beautiful dark brown eyes of yours were smiling too, like always while looking at me, your child.
© Unfold Your Mat 2016