And this is a complete bitch because doing yoga is hard. The reason it’s hard is because you have to fight what you’d rather do, and do what’s better for you in the long run instead.
My desires, needs, and wants at the moment are to be angry and enraged and bitchy. Because I’m sad and afraid.
I’m fearful not only for myself but for the world and the situation my grandchildren are going to grow up in if this alarming political shit continues.
I walk around all day having screamy fights in my head with weak, spineless politicians and every ignoramus asshole who voted for Trump.
Every time my yoga-teacher self tries to break into this argument, she says, “Omg, Kath, you need to get a grip, hon. Get on your mat, set your timer, and breathe, for goddsakes.”
But then, my sad, fearful, enraged self butts in and goes, “But did you hear what that motherfucker is threatening to do today??!!”
And then I go walk the dogs and resume the screamy fights in my head with the spineless politicians.
Because the truth is, the last thing I want to do is roll out my mat and be quiet. I don’t want to do yoga. I want to be mad.
And I need to be mad. I’m justified in my outrage and anger. And furthermore, being mad seems the only proper response to this present shitshow.
Yoga only works when you do it when you don’t want to do it.
When exhaustion inevitably overtakes me, and I return to some semblance of sanity, it starts to dawn on me that if I only do yoga when my life is calm and serene, and immediately ditch it when things are shitty, that’s really dumb.
It would be like training to be a firefighter, but when the house is on fire, you forget what a hose is and how to turn it on.
You practice on the mat, so when your house catches fire, you know what to do and how to breathe to put it out.
The most important thing a yoga practice teaches you is how to tell when you’re in crazy mode and need to chill out. And then it teaches you how to do it. Which is, basically, breathing.
So if you’re going to class, spending time, energy, and money learning how to chill out and breathe when you lose your shit, but then don’t deploy those strategies when you really need them, what the hell are you doing? Mastering Downdog? How ridiculous.
Yoga only works when you can figure out the lesson of Downdog and then deploy that lesson in your real life.
If you recognize that you’ve been rage-screaming in your head for two hours but then go a little bit upside down for a while to recalibrate, that’d be a great way to use Downdog to deploy yoga.
If you work on making your spine flexible, maybe it won’t be so prone to getting bent out of shape when the world’s geopolitics goes sideways.
The key is to remember to do yoga when you need it, not when you feel like it. Because you’ll never feel like it when you need it. The trick is to pause, recognize you’re on fire, and then try to think of where you put the hose.
Namaste, friends.
Carry on as best you can.
Inspiration Location 
Gosh, you make such a great point here. I think I could apply it to my blogging, where I know it’s easier to do when things are going swimmingly in my life, but not so much when things are kinda sucky.
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I hear you, Rhonda. I struggle with that, too, in the blog. I don’t want the blog to devolve into a bitch-fest, so I’m always trying to spin it toward positivity. But, at the same time, life can get dark sometimes, and I think it helps people not feel so alone if there’s someone out there writing about how they’re trying to negotiate the rough times as well. There is also the reality of our baked-in negativity bias, where people are drawn to the messy, the sucky, and the unsavory. To edit all that out, or only write when, as you say, things are going swimmingly, isn’t real. I appreciate your comment a lot. Carry on, sistah!
Kath
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