Yoga Diaries~Week 2

September 26th 2017

“I took a deep breath and listened to the old bray of my heart; I am, I am, I am.” ~Sylvia Plath

Day 4~ 9.22.17

This weekend of training started out quite emotional. Yet again, I was given the opportunity to talk about myself and my life in detail for 5 minutes, and yet again, I repressed all of my feelings out of habit and made myself feel boring and emotionless. I felt like everyone was being so open and vulnerable about their lives and their feelings and I was just sort of like “HI! I SAW A MOVIE THIS WEEK!” It is a really lame feeling to not be as open and vulnerable as I would like to be.

However, after my 2 minute ramble about the literal nothingness that was my past 2 weeks, I was prompted to present my homework. My homework assignment was to answer the following question, openly and honestly:

“What have you repressed about yourself to “fit in”? What have you missed out on?”

I personally found this to be an incredibly stimulating question because growing up, I found myself repressing a TON about myself to fit in, but I narrowed it down to this:

“I’m going to start off by saying, I never really “fit in” growing up. Socially, I was always pretty normal and I got along well with my peers, but I was never one to fit in. My mom always said it was because I was an old soul with a strong moral voice. 

I outgrew people quickly because I just wasn’t into what everyone was into at the time. When I hit middle school, everything changed when I decided that all I wanted was to fit in. So I repressed my moral voice and allow myself to take part in drama that I was normally against, just to feel I was “contributing” to my group of friends.

I got even better at shutting off this inner voice in high school and even into early college. Drama flowed through me like a faucet and for the first time, I felt like I fit in. I would talk about people behind their backs to appease others, talk to guys I shouldn’t have because I wanted stories to tell, anything to keep myself relevant.

Midway through college, I gave up the act and found some real friends who’s ideas of contribution were not drama, rebellion, and promiscuity, but instead mutual respect, listening, and understanding.

I gave up a lot of opportunities to grow and take the high road when I was younger, but I’ve claimed it back.” 

Upon hearing my story, my instructor gave me a new assignment. This assignment was to discard any talk of the past and re-answer the question in regards to now. After sleeping on it, I think I know the answer though.

I repress my ability to say no. I am not entirely sure that makes sense, but it is definitely true. I have such bad FOMO that I have so many issues saying no which ends up in me spending too much money and not having enough time for myself. I don’t exactly do it to “fit in”, but I do it in order to not “fall out”, I guess?  I’m working on fixing it though.

Day 5~ 9.23.17

Day 2 of the weekend started with a nice Yoga Nidra class for me. I honestly love meditation and the opportunity to sit and savor the silence. What I love about Yoga Nidra that I prefer over other forms of meditation I have tried is the fact that I get to choose how I position myself so I can enjoy the deepest form of relaxation.

I am personally a fan of my legs being raised and supported with a bolster because it is great on the circulation and leaves my lower back feeling lovely. I must admit, I didn’t realize how much I needed the meditation until I finished it.

After Yoga Nidra, I had a Vinyasa class. If I am going to be honest, I don’t remember much in terms of specifics from the class besides the fact that it was a tough but wonderful class. As much as I resist it at times, I always enjoy a bit of a challenge and even if I am sweating my ass off, I find that the struggle is worth it.

The rest of the day was spent on two things; 1) going through the standing postures in extreme details, learning to realign our bodies properly and how to modify for people of different physical abilities and 2) learning about the importance of the breath in a yoga practice.

Upon going through the practice with the standing postures, I am really starting to enjoy hands on adjustments more than I had in the past. I used to get insecure when I would get adjusted a lot in a class because I thought it meant I was doing poorly. Now, I have sort of realized that getting a hands on adjustment can actually indicate that I am doing things right, but could be doing even better. I feel like by allowing myself to not feel so put down about feeling adjusted, I will grow a lot more in my practice and in my self confidence.

Day 6~9.24.17

Sunday was, by far, the most relaxing of the past weekend…except for the Vinyasa class that kicked my butt. I started the day of training with a one-on-one chat with my lead instructor where I got to discuss what was going on with me and how I was feeling in regards to the training. I tried to explain that I often diffuse my stress and pain with humor because I have lost the ability to be vulnerable in front of people. I’m not entirely sure that I got it across as well as I wanted to, but it’s a start.

After flailing around and rambling about my insecurities and my quarter life crisis, she gave me a new personal assignment:

“Write down 3 things (unrelated to yoga) that are completely out of my control and explain how I can see those things in my practice”

Honestly, I find the prompt a little confusing but I figure I will give it a shot on here so we can all go through this together.

1- I have no control over whether or not my job takes me on full time- This one is incredibly hard for me to admit because I keep trying to convince myself that if I work hard then my college job will hire me full time, but it really comes down to my university’s budget which is not under my or anyone in my office’s control. I feel like this translates over to my practice because I often push myself extra hard on my mat to work towards this end goal that I have very little control over. My body only goes as far as it can so driving myself crazy won’t push it beyond that point any faster.

2-I cannot control the future- This one is super general but super true. I like to live in the future when I need to be living in the present. I find myself so wrapped up in potential and what “could be” that I forget to focus on getting there. This relates to my practice because I often get discouraged when I don’t live up to my perceived “potential” and I don’t appreciate my “now”.

3- I have no way of controlling people’s perceptions of me- I always find myself trying to get on top of how people view me with no avail. I cannot control how people view me, only how I present myself. This translates over to my mat because I find that I often push myself to look better to others and not just because I want to be good for myself. If I focused more on looking good and working hard for me, I could probably go a lot farther.

Overall

I found this weekend to be a great step in the right direction. I hope to continue to see improvements in my own personal growth, but for now, I am going to appreciate what I have~

Jess~