Do you believe in magic?
As a brand-new yoga teacher years ago, I was teaching my VERY first class at a health club with 50+ people in the room. As I was circling the room and teaching, I was distracted by these two women who were having a conversation at the back of the studio. I walked back there and leaned down and this woman said quite loud and right in my face, “I am so bored, you need to step this up!"
On Monday, this week one of my private yoga students commented to me that every session of yoga for over 4 years was completely different and challenging. Not even 12 hours later, another private student said to me that he thought yoga was boring, that it was always the same.
It is kind of the same, I guess. Chances are in a yoga session you will do some sort of centering or welcome, a warm-up, some standing poses, balance, move the spine in all its capacities, cool down, and then rest. Many people think of yoga as the actual shapes or asanas. But the shapes are just the vehicle we are using to practice the yoga. The yoga IS the staying connected and curious to whatever the body and mind are doing in every moment. And sometimes (most of the time) that means things repeat. Basic postures like Down Dog or Warrior 2 will most likely re-occur with every practice. There are also flows or series of postures that are linked together and then repeated. A Sun Salutation is a good example. In some yoga lineages the entire practice is set series. Many, like me, feel there is a meditative quality that happens as we find ourselves able to flow in a sequence that we do not have to think about. Week after week, we can check in with our physical self and take the pulse of how we are feeling in that pose or series. There is magic in the repetition.
I started running last Thanksgiving and talk about repetitive! Clearly things in life can be tedious if we let them. This year like no other in history presented us with mind numbing monotony. Part of what yoga has taught me is to arrive on my mat with the same curiosity and eagerness as I did on day one. Every moment is an opportunity to reflect on something new and to see things fresh. We make adjusments and listen to the cues a teacher or our own body is telling us, finding a little tweak here and a slight adjustment there. And in that way we allow ourselves to make it new.
We take this lesson out into the world. Can we look at everything through a this new lense? Can we approach our jobs in that way? Can we make choices in our diet that allow food to continue to be new and interesting? Allow your environment to continually surprise you. Re-arranging the furniture or simply pausing to notice how the light enters your windows at different times of day allows you to expand your experience. For anyone in a long-term relationship, can you imagine seeing your partner or spouse the same way every day? Allow your loved ones to grow and change. Look for how they become more and more beautiful right before your very eyes. FIND THE MAGIC. Allow things to reflect in new light.
xoxo
JK
*Speaking of magic.... if you have not watched Derek DelGuadio's In And Of Itself on Hulu I highly recommend. It is magic show, and so much more.
**Retreats are magic too. Mexico in May is filling up. Link below. Let me know if you are thinking about it or have any questions.