Possibilities

Just open yourself to the possibilities and you will be amazed at where you can go and what you can do. It sounds so cliché, but when you truly believe it in your heart is when the world opens to you. Yoga has brought me to this place and I can only dream where it will take me. I was contemplating this last night after my yoga class. I had one of those nights where everything felt ‘on’ – whether it was or not really didn’t matter as much as how it felt to me (and that is one of the things that makes yoga so awesome!).

A few weeks ago I was in Florida and practicing yoga at American Yoga in Deerfield Beach when at the end of a long tough class I tried for wheel – and got it! I seriously was almost in tears during savasana I was so happy. I always swore it was not enough upper body strength (and secretly thinking I still weighed too much and maybe in another 10 lbs I’ll be better able to lift myself, etc). Teachers told me it’s all in the legs. They said don’t think, just do it. I got tips on different ways to try to make it work. Legs closer in, arms wider, arms closer, try a strap, the list goes on. Well all it seemed to take was a bit of exhaustion and a ‘what the hell!’ attitude and I just went right up! And the next day I did it again. O. M. G.! Talk about feeling like I could take on the world!

So I returned to Michigan and for one reason or another didn’t have the opportunity to do wheel in class for at least a week. I knew to not set myself up to be disappointed if I didn’t get it again, and so earlier in the week when wheel didn’t happen and felt like a struggle, I gave myself a pep talk that it would happen again, I just had to be open to it and confident. Last night I went up into wheel not once, but twice! Interestingly, after class I was talking with my teacher about it and she commented that she saw me pause and really think about it before going up into wheel – what I realized later was that I was actually pausing to talk myself out of thinking too hard about it and to just give it a shot and try to be confident that my body now remembers the pose. I was so excited, I felt like I could conquer anything after that! Taking that feeling away from my mat I’ve had just a fantastic day today. Who knew a simple yoga pose could mean so much and deliver so much? What a freeing feeling it is.