I've Missed My Yoga!


As I sit looking at the falling snow, as it skids along the glass of my front window, I am strengthening my resolve to slow down a bit... though I have to scoot in an hour to Chair the Parent Council meeting at my daughter's school tonight (I think that I'm turning into a soccer mom)! This past month has been ridiculously silly. As a Teacher, this is perhaps the roughest time of year as the weather renders itself the spoiler of summer's dreams, forcing cabin fever into the being of my adolescent students, already gone nuts from hormones and puberty. On top of this, particularly as a Special Needs Teacher, there is an abundance of bureaucratic smegma to wade through, with Individualised Programme and progress reports being due (I love teaching but loathe paperwork). The time has leaped back in fear of the forthcoming winter, causing my commutes to and from work to be enveloped in darkness as the moonlight glares from the polish on the ice clad roads (hence the lament for my bicycle in my previous post). Finally, there are few breaks between September and December.

...and for good measure, don't forget, colds, flus, H1N1 which tend to flourish in the bacterial and viral playgrounds of our educational institution.

That is my professional life. Beyond that, those remaining fragments of my days are consumed with family, efforts to stay in shape and trying to get my band, PLAID FLAG, gig ready. These latter parts, definitely self-imposed, serve more as stress relievers, but can also add stress simply by taking away from pure down time.

The result of this way of life has left me with the sensation of a hatchet in my skull headache, nausea, chest pains, a racing mind and overall sense of exhaustion. I have no one to blame but myself as the cornerstone to my sanity - my Yoga and Meditation practice - as been allowed to lapse into virtual non-existence. I'm eating well, hitting the gym hard and whatnot, but I am missing that quiet time that allows me to unwind. Thus, I am really trying to return to my much neglected practice, and, with this, comes reflection.

It's interesting to see how I allow my Yoga to slide from time to time, given that it has been the most centering thing in a life that has seen its share of tumultuous times. I've been practicing for a decade now, and my first two years were spent going to intense Iyengar classes which formulated the basis of my Yoga. Since then, while going to classes sporadically and reading volume upon volume of Eastern Philosophy, Psychology, etc., my practice has been primarily at home. I don't know why I find it so difficult to motivate myself to take in a few classes at the many studios around town. I have no problem going to the gym, for example. I think my reluctance lies more so in being at a class for a scheduled time and the lack of solitude within a group setting. Many will say that the energy one receives doing asanas within a group can be powerful (that's the whole philosophy behind sangha's or spiritual communities), but I am, at heart, an introvert. I must say, from the 5-10 classes that I do take in over a year, I add new things to my routine and learn a thing or two. But, like so many things in life, we don't always do what it best for us. We are strange creatures indeed.

In the end, I recognise the negative effects of not doing Yoga, meditation and writing in my gratitude journal on a daily basis. In addition to the physiological affects described above, and, ironically through the tone of my words, it sets me in a negative mindset - a psychological state one really does not want to embrace with the onset of the Canadian winter! So, I'm glad that I have resolved to take a few deep Yoga breaths to give myself a kick in the arse, and bring Spring into my mind, if not my environment!