Fast forward to March 2020 when COVID hit. Suddenly, I had a ton of time on my hands. Time alone. Time to be with my body, alone and in silence for the first time in my life.
Finally, a chance for me to finally do all the things I had been meaning to do! Hooray! I had visions of my to-do lists finally cleared and blank. I imagined putting check marks next to ALL OF THE THINGS. I had fantasies of finally being able to say, "well, I've done everything I've needed to do, I can die happy now." Yoga was one of those things I had been putting off because of "lack of time" and now I had no other excuses left.
Upon Maddy’s and Ruth’s suggestion, I tried one of “Yoga with Adriene’s 30-Day Series” as my 30-day challenge for April 2020. I did the one called “Journey to Home.” Adriene used yoga to encourage manifesting and embodying a sense of “home” in the body. Each day had a different theme, such as “Nurture,” “Grow,” and “Balance.”
Adriene has a message that she repeats at least once in almost every single video to remind the viewer to practice good posture: “Head over heart, heart over pelvis.”
From a physical standpoint, this encourages putting the weight of your head and torso over the strong muscles of your hips and thighs. When I did this at first, it felt like I was leaning backwards because I was so used to a more forward slumped poster. Like many people, I have a kind of “computer posture” and “texting neck” that causes heads and shoulders to lean forward.
(Leaning forward results in the small muscles of the neck having to hold the entire weight of your head (11 lbs!), which is really heavy. By aligning head over heart (aka torso), the head can rest effortlessly on the spine, which is what it is meant to do (how else do you think people carry heavy loads on their heads? It's not just from muscles, it's from the spine being stacked on top of one another so the muscles don't have to do any work.)
To this end, I started internalizing another message: “Your mind and your heart rests over and is supported by your body.” The source of everything is in your body, I started realizing.
From a spiritual perspective, Adriene’s message is to align our minds, hearts, and bodies.
I started to internalize the idea that my mind, heart, and body were integrated aspects of myself that composed my spirit.
Adriene also teaches that the breath connects these three parts. The breath connects it all as the breath is the source of our energy.
I loved the Yoga with Adriene message, I loved her videos and I loved the routine of watching a video each morning. I was starting to learn yoga, and connect with my body on a spiritual level. I could already feel myself being more aware of my posture, and started to feel my muscles relax with the increased stretching.
One day in the middle of the 30-day yoga challenge, I did a "Sabbath Day" with Brai where we shut off all electronics for the day (including clocks, cars, stoves, and lights! It really was fun. We used candles in the evening and ate salads. We took naps, went on walks, watched the sunset, and Brai played guitar while I journaled).
“I want to make one exception for myself and still do the Yoga with Adriene video though,” I explained, saying that I still wanted to use my computer.
“I bet you could do yoga without the video,” Brai countered. Brai had already been following Yoga with Adriene on YouTube and had been practicing yoga for several years. “Why don’t you try—just for one day—doing what your body tells you to do and not watching a video?” Brai suggested.
I squirmed in my seat. I wanted someone to tell me what to do. I wasn’t confident in myself. “I don’t really know anything about yoga,” I told myself. “I’m not capable,” I told myself. “I don’t know what I’m doing,” I told myself.
“Are you sure? I don’t even know what I would start with,” I said.
“You can do it,” Brai encouraged.
"You really think so?" I asked. "I'm a newbie."
"I really think so," Brai said.
The knot in my stomach told me that I was uncomfortable with this idea. Deep down I knew this knot meant that I should do it anyway. So, on our Sabbath Day, I didn’t turn on my computer to search YouTube for the next Yoga with Adriene video. I just did some of the moves that I had learned the past couple weeks. I also imitated Brai at times, who was doing their own free form yoga across the room. I did what my body told me to do. It felt good. “Wow, I really can do this on my own,” I thought.
As the month progressed, I continued to do the videos, but I would do extra stretching after the video or in the evenings that was totally free form--just doing what felt right.
To be continued...
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