Day 18: The Sanctuary of Yoga

My practice has become my sanctuary.  It’s the place where I feel most at home, least alone and embraced by the prana of the earth and the universe.  When I started this journey, I thought that half way through my month of yoga, I would find it hard to find the time or the want to step onto my mat or to constantly question the motives behind my actions.  But instead, the opposite has happened.

I look forward to my time on the mat immensely.  It is the only time of the day when I am welcomed to work into my muscles as I breathe, where my breath is the only care in my mind, where my body becomes fluid and bends into new and familiar shapes.  Sometimes, my muscles complain, sore from the day prior, but other days, the practice is endless and my body finds new favorite positions to work into.  Upside down, right-side-up, sideways and every way in-between, my body glowing in the happiness of slowly returning to the fluidity of the womb; a coming home.  Some days, my mind works harder than my muscles to concentrate on the breath, other days, my mental endurance is unfading.

I have more to let go so that my body can open to its fullest.  My hips--which carry all that first and second chakra baggage--are extraordinarily tight and still pull at my fragile low back when I’m not careful.  My neck and shoulders, or my “stress indicators,” as I like to call them, are beginning to tighten up again, and I need to learn to let stress drip off of them and to open my heart fully.  I find so much comfort and, strangely, motivation in the fact that yoga has no finish line, no perfection, no over-arching goal except to practice honestly, openly and with compassion, and to make conscious decisions from a place of love, rather than fear.