me.

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mommy. wife. teacher. yogini. writer. coffee drinker. aunt. crocheter. reader. dog lover. scattered. methodical. rational. irrational. paranoid. annoyed. lost. found. content. searching. peaceful. i am constantly in search of my story. the one i have never happened. the one i've lived i cannot write.

28 April 2010

complicated simplicity.

bear with me.
i'm all over the place with this one.

if you've never experienced
a session of anusara yoga
i highly recommend and encourage it.

i love yoga
just about any style of it
but i take from an inspired anusara teacher.
one of the things i love about anusara yoga
is that it establishes an intention for your practice
prior to the down-dogs and pigeons.

last night's intention was
simplicity.
we started off by sharing how we got into yoga.
i originally started my journey with yoga in college
when i stumbled across steve ross' show on television.
i think i got into it for the 'exercise'
(despite the fact that i would light up a cigarette shortly after my practice)
i was never good at the sports-thing
but i found i was good at yoga.
i enjoyed it
and always felt revived following an hour of vinyasas.

it wasn't until we moved home
that i began exploring yoga in a studio setting
and found with it came
a spiritual side to the practice that
had eluded me for nearly five years.

yoga has saved
my sanity
my mobility
my spirit.

yoga
got me through the first seven months
of my pregnancy.

yoga
brought me back from the brink
of catastrophe
and helped me regain my balance.

yoga
has pulled me from the darkness
more than once
and helped me find my center.

have i told you how much i love yoga?


but i digress.

* * *
our new session began last night
and with it came a renewed teacher
full of energy for the practice.

the intention was simplicity.
one of the passages she shared with us dealt with
how to make life
simpler.

what do you omit from your own life
to make it simpler?

is it your work load?
is it your commitments?
is it your social obligations?

the last one was the one that resonated with me.
probably not in the way it was intended in the passage
but it stuck with me regardless:
that word

social.

if you know me at all
then you know this:

i am not a people person.

and i was completely okay with this
until i had a child.
and then
i observed the happy mothers
with their beads
and chanel sunglasses
and lattes
at the park
while their children ran around unminded
and thought
'is my anti-social nature a disservice to my child?'

soon
news of 'get-togethers' and a lack of invite to such gatherings
had me knotted and feeling like the middle school kid
who doesn't have a seat saved for her at the lunch table
pictures of others' play dates
on my preferred social networking site
(and preferred means of socializing)
had me searching my empty rolodex for the names of people with children
the same age as my own.

but here's the thing.
the intention set last night
the intention i set for myself
is one of simplicity.

if

i force myself
to be someone i am not
for the sake of being 'social'
not only is it a disservice to myself
but it is
ultimately
a disservice to my girl.

if simplicity makes us a more complete being
then why do i think that complicating my life
with the idea of being social
would benefit my girl?

so

i'm not going to worry about it any more.
instead
i'm going to be the best
simple
me
i can be
and know that my girl will benefit from that
more than from a mother
that complicates her life
with worrying about how many play dates
she's booked for the month.


what do you need to omit from your life to make it simpler?
go well.

1 comment:

Hedlund Family said...

I love it... you and I are a lot alike...

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