Becoming Unglued

Every time I rolled over in bed last night, I woke up because…

My. Body. Ached.

Yesterday’s epiphany?  I am not my body.

Not world shattering, I know.  But most of the time, I forget this because every social construct around me wants to convince me otherwise:  You are what you eat, or don’t eat.  You are where you live, and what you drive, and what you wear, and how you smell, and what you do for a living, blah diddy blah, blah, blah.

I’m officially calling bullshit on all that.  You know what you are?  What I am?

You are what you can see.

Not “see” with your eyeballs, but with (don’t say it, Kath) your Third Eye. (oh god, she said it.)

In those magical moments, nano-seconds really, when you can pull out of this drama-rama and watch the whole show of malls, and clothes, and food, and bodies and yes, even yoga class, and know that I’m not really this…

Bam! Wake-up time.

Unfortunately, it often takes a mighty wrench of some kind to extricate yourself from the gluey culture that wants to keep you stuck. Because the culture would collapse if you stopped buying stuff, or stopped making yourself crazy doing stuff you hate just for money or to please people who are equally stuck. You need to play the game, goddammit.

So, back to me, in bed, aching.

Yesterday.  Holy shit.  The practice after lunch was so hard (at least for me.)  I wanted to cry.  I wanted to surrender.  I wanted to just take Child’s Pose and have it all disappear.  I kept saying under my breath, “holyshitholyshitholyshit.”  My mind kept asking, “Why must you do this to yourself? Whyyyyy???”

At one point, I was in Warrior 2 with a backbend with Yoganand  holding my knee and pulling it over my ankle all the while telling us all to, “Just let the intensity build like a coiled spring, so that when you release,  you will just shoot right into Ardha Chandrasana, like a rocket.”

It was abundantly clear that I was not going to shoot anywhere upon release. (Except maybe to the floor in a cannon ball splash of sweat and tears.)

But then I just snapped, and began laughing uncontrollably (not out loud, of course, but inside). Because in that moment, in order to physically continue, I had to totally dissociate from my pain.  And when I did that, I realized…

I am not my body.

My body can be in pain, but I’m in here, watching the whole thing, and I’m perfectly fine. Laughing, even.

And I re-realized that doing yoga is the same as buying groceries or drinking coffee or going running or taking a bath.  If you can see it.

It’s a big “IF”  I know, and unless someone has a gun to your head, (or a hand on your knee in Warrior 2 with a backbend) you really can’t become unglued all by yourself.

So that, boys and girls, is the story of why I do this to myself.

And now I must go take a shower and get ready to do it again today.

(Pray for me.)