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Yoga post, and also probably TMI for some males...
Sharon Olds has a great poem in the New Yorker that uses breast self-examination as a metaphor for many things (won't demolish poem here). But I of course took off on the literal level, and thought about how I don't like to (and therefore often don't) do that, even though I do go for my regular physicals and exams. And why not? Because I'm afraid of finding something, of course. And that's not the only part of life I treat that way--I have a real gift for denial and avoidance. One skill I've honed for years is turning my mind away from grief and conflict and loss and all those other things that are so much better dealt with head-on.
So then I wondered if I could learn to use yoga to help me face things instead of running. Because that's one thing about yoga--it's very hard not to face what you're feeling. In the simplest poses, like Uttanasa where you bend down and and stretch your hamstrings, or baby dancer, where you (well, I) teeter insecurely on one leg while the other is up and back behind you--even in those poses, you can't let your mind slip away to something else. You can't do solitaire or watch TV or read LJ to distract you from what's happening. The feeling is there and it's real and for that moment, it's unavoidable. You can use your breath, but not as a distraction. Focusing on the breath in a pose is really a way of feeling it more deeply. Can I take that experience off the mat and into the rest of my life, and learn to feel anger or disappointment the same way I feel hanuman? And then maybe would I also learn to feel the joy of other moments more completely, like the scary joy I felt the first time I did Urdhva Dhanurasana?
And face the truth to save my life?
Sharon Olds has a great poem in the New Yorker that uses breast self-examination as a metaphor for many things (won't demolish poem here). But I of course took off on the literal level, and thought about how I don't like to (and therefore often don't) do that, even though I do go for my regular physicals and exams. And why not? Because I'm afraid of finding something, of course. And that's not the only part of life I treat that way--I have a real gift for denial and avoidance. One skill I've honed for years is turning my mind away from grief and conflict and loss and all those other things that are so much better dealt with head-on.
So then I wondered if I could learn to use yoga to help me face things instead of running. Because that's one thing about yoga--it's very hard not to face what you're feeling. In the simplest poses, like Uttanasa where you bend down and and stretch your hamstrings, or baby dancer, where you (well, I) teeter insecurely on one leg while the other is up and back behind you--even in those poses, you can't let your mind slip away to something else. You can't do solitaire or watch TV or read LJ to distract you from what's happening. The feeling is there and it's real and for that moment, it's unavoidable. You can use your breath, but not as a distraction. Focusing on the breath in a pose is really a way of feeling it more deeply. Can I take that experience off the mat and into the rest of my life, and learn to feel anger or disappointment the same way I feel hanuman? And then maybe would I also learn to feel the joy of other moments more completely, like the scary joy I felt the first time I did Urdhva Dhanurasana?
And face the truth to save my life?