Seeing Red
“Yoga is the best tool to help you change your mind about your body.”
-Jamie Martin Wilson
Say the word yoga and the image that pops into the minds of most people in the Western world is probably a posture, usually something involving lots of flexibility, impressive balance, or odd strength. That’s fine. It’s a beginning, but anyone who practices yoga for any significant length of time will discover that the most transformative part of yoga is not something that can be captured in a photo. It is more something to be felt than seen.
I wrote a post for this week and then I never made the video because I started my period. It’s not that I don’t practice yoga during my cycle; sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t. But I opted to save that post for another week when my energy was up to what I wanted to show in the video. I also wanted to be very real and talk about one of the things that we women often avoid talking about, or we complain about it: menstruation. I know, not everyone complains about it, but most do and modern society is definitely not designed to allow for that resting period we need so badly at that time. Fortunately, there has been a movement towards changing our attitudes towards menstruation as a tool for self-understanding rather than as an inconvenience.
Whenever I feel weighed down by my cycle, I remember that one of the reasons humanity has continued is because of menstruation. Literally. Isn’t that part of how we all became Yoga Mamas? It might sound like I’m forcing optimism at a time when my energy is low, but as I said above, forget the rose-colored glasses. In fact, don’t wear anything that obstructs your view. For me, it’s a time when I see red, sometimes in the form of blood and other times, before the blood comes, I see frustration or anger coming to the surface. I’m less patient. I need more time to myself, and Yoga Mamas know how hard it can be to find that solo time.
Luckily I’ve had to stay home a lot this week because I am potty training my daughter. After reading Oh Crap! Potty Training by Jamie Glowacki, I decided to try the method she suggests and stay home for a few days before resuming my normal weekly activities. That means I’ve been able to rest and finally take my own advice to just go ahead and practice for 10-15 minutes while my daughter runs around, instead of waiting until she’s asleep.There’s nothing like squeezing in a few postures while watching your kid sit on the potty! Yes, I really did to that…
Anyways, there’s no new video to share this week and hopefully that can be both an inspiration and reminder to those of you still menstruating, that some of our biological functions that might seem most annoying are actually reminders for us to slow down and take some time to rest.
Speaking of biological functions, I better go check to see if my daughter has to use the potty...
Slow-ga
Take ten minutes to read something that is uplifting to you. Recently I’ve read Savoring Slow by Shawn Fink and The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle, but you decide what helps you keep the big picture. I’d love to hear about it -- please share some of your favorite inspirational reading in the comments. This might seem like a random suggestion, and you might wonder how it is yoga at all. As in the quote above, yoga is a way to change your mind about your body. I’ve found that reading something that helps me change my perspective helps my yoga practice so much. Sometimes one profound quote from something I’ve read gives me something meaningful to reflect on while I’m practicing poses, too.
The picture above shows a really nice supported pose that yoga teachers Linda Sparrowe and Patricia Walden suggest in their book Yoga for a Healthy Menstrual Cycle. This can be an inspiring read, but errs more on the side of practical. I’ll review it in a future post.