Today I cried, almost uncontrollably, during yoga. I had felt the urge several times during the process but I held on, mostly through nasty self talk. I was not loving these exercises we were doing and felt this anger bubbling over when the instructor talked about how relaxing downward facing dog is.
I moaned and almost shouted out and then berated myself, loudly, “stupid” being the loudest epithet. For some of you this may not seem like a big deal but for someone who was raised to highly value the intellect, being stupid is an enormous insult, a very high-tiered bad word in my life.
My muscles are tightly wound. I know this. And in down dog I am not able to get my heels on the floor, my hands on the floor and my ass straight up while keeping my knees straight. It isn’t physically possible. I am much better than I used to be, but my weight rests primarily on my shoulders and upper arms, which are very strong to begin with but settling into down dog literally becomes unbearable for me and a great strain. Whenever any yoga teacher chirps “down dog” I get into the position and work it, but hearing about how relaxing it is… well, it sort of started my downward (no pun intended) cycle.
I never think of speaking up in the group about what to do when I feel like I have to throw up or death is imminent, but another woman did and I finally received respite and an alternate pose. She suggested child’s pose, but that is another relaxing pose that is anything but relaxing to me. Everything hurts me in child’s pose. I can’t think of any point of my body that feels good in child’s pose.
I am beginning to feel I am the oddest yoga-duck out there.
And I keep going back because I feel so good after yoga, my body benefits from it. On Wednesday time evaporated and today, time evaporated. I never look at the clock during Yoga like I do in other exercise classes. I simply follow the instructors voice and move into pose and grimace occasionally and breathe.
So today after the downward dog fiasco into opening moments we finally settled into savasana and these tears erupted from deep in my gut. There I was on my back, attempting to stay still and relaxed while the teacher was talking about relaxing and breath and I was doing my best to not moan from somewhere between my feet to my lower abdomen. I writhed, I gulped, I silently wept. The tears coursed down my face as I refused to reach up and wipe them away.
It felt fantastic.
It felt weird.
It felt haunting.
It felt curious.
I have never heard of anyone else crying like this in yoga, so I wondered. And I asked and I continued to move through it. I need to find my poem and put it here.
ok, enough ranting. Wrote a poem about the episode, also.
