Lately, I’ve been unable to begin any blog post without referring to the Coronavirus that’s affecting our daily living. Who amongst us remains untouched by it in some form or the other? Unprecedented times see us hunkered down in our homes, our only weapon against this insidious virus being social distancing, and no one knows how long this will last and what sort of world we will encounter as and when this is finally over.
But I’m only telling you what you know already!
Today I want to talk about something different, but really related to this time as well. For years, I’d been wanting to return to yoga. The last time I’d practised yoga was in 1998 and that too for a very short while. I remember my yoga teacher being a lovely redhead, perhaps in her 50’s, quite large, but incredibly flexible and very patient with newbies like me. As a twenty-something, I’d come to yoga out of curiosity. In my heart I prized other forms of exercise over it, believing it to be too slow for my young body and wanting the challenge of something more aerobic, something that made me sweat and strain and transformed me visibly. For the seven months that I went to my Thursday yoga classes, I didn’t not enjoy them, but maybe, didn’t take away quite what I was supposed to. When my mother died, overcome by grief, I dropped everything including yoga. And then, inexplicably, I never went back to it.
Well, twenty-two years later, I have returned. In all those years of living and growing, pounding pavements in marathons, jumping up and down in various classes, somewhere within me there started to emerge a yearning for something more soothing, more nurturing for my body and soul. With the lockdown in place, this was an opportune time to return to the yoga I had abandoned all those years ago. This time, all I have is an iPad, a youtube channel and a determination to practise as often as I can. You see, this time I’m no twenty-something limber young woman chomping at the bit. Not only am I older and wiser, but I am also far less flexible and far more life and weather-beaten than before. Yoga is the cradle of comfort I take this rather battered body to as often as I can.
People far more articulate than me have elucidated the benefits of yoga, so I won’t do that here. I will, however, tell you about the little discoveries that I have made. Never the most patient of people, yoga has taught me that nothing can be rushed. There is a time and place for everything. My wanting to plant my heels on the ground in my downward facing dog didn’t happen overnight, my calves were not flexible enough, to begin with. With time, regular practice and patience, I have improved incrementally enough to have miraculously done it yesterday! A tiny, tiny improvement but one that I am immensely proud of, because it has taught me not just what my body is capable of, but also that I must apply this lesson to my life too. I cannot expect instantaneous results, I have to work my way towards them.
Similarly, balance is something we all strive for, whether it is a work-life one or whether it is in our temperament and our response to what life flings at us. I struggle with my tree pose, unable to plant my foot sufficiently high up on my opposing thigh. Yet, yoga teaches me that it is finding the balance between the opposing forces, setting my eyes upon one spot and breathing deeply that can help me stand rooted, tall and firm as a tree. Tell me that isn’t a lesson we can apply to our daily living too?
Finally, even as I struggle with the more advanced positions in yoga, I can’t help but look back and see how far I have come from those early days. If I put in the work, where might I be in a month, a year, ten years? Perspective, after all, is a point of view, and a point of view is determined by where you are standing at any given point in time.
For those of us who are struggling with the uncertainty of our lives and futures, take a deep breath, find the patience to get through this time and remember, nothing lasts forever. Not even a ruddy virus!
