Early Experiences off the Mat

I was about 5 years into my yoga practice when I first began to take it off the mat.

It was not a well-formulated, conscious decision by any means. But when I think back, it was a clear moment in time, 2006 to be exact, that my yoga practice began to shift in a new direction that went beyond the asana or yoga poses.

This shift began, as many things do, with a loss.

It was the winter of 2006, and was I 28 years-old.  I had had a medical procedure, and afterward the physician who had performed the procedure said to me, in a rather aloof manner, that he believed I would not ever be able to get pregnant and have children of my own.

Now, I had never been one of those girls who grew up fantasizing about weddings or babies.  At age 28 I was an independent young woman just 6 months out of graduate school who was beginning my career.

But have you ever felt a loss of something that you did not even have yet?  Had not even envisioned for yourself yet?

Well, I did.  Hearing the news that I would likely not be able to have children was devastating.

The following day I went to work (of course, that’s what we all do right?!), but by lunchtime I felt depleted and grief-stricken.  So I left the building I worked in at the time and strolled over to the Barnes and Noble to soothe myself with a hot beverage.

When I walked through the doors of the bookstore/café, I saw the usual rolling carts of discounted books on display.  I absently walked over to them and began to scan covers and titles, and that’s when my eye caught on the orangey-red hue of Christy Turlington’s 2002 book Living Yoga: Creating a Life Practice.

Reading this book, not once, not twice, but many times, was a game-changer for me.  Not because it is the most well-written book about yoga.  Not because I have much interest, if any, in the former model Ms. Turlington (no offense to her). 

For me, re-reading this book was like massaging something inside of me that I could not fully articulate yet.  It was like I knew something organic was happening, but I had no language to put it into words.

I think the 5 years I had been going to yoga classes and bending myself into all sorts of pretzel contortions had opened up a space inside of me to first explore the virtues and philosophy that contextualize the asana limb of yoga.

Ten years later, I would say this shift marked the beginning of a spiritual life. 

Of course back then, I would have said no such thing- the word “spiritual” was definitely not in my vocabulary.   No, I would have intellectualized Ms. Turlington’s spiritual memoir.  And I did.

“Oh, how interesting! Look at the many different types of meditation there are.  Look at the history of the science of yoga.”  Very much a neck-up endeavor, and quite similar to the approach I had taken to my introduction to mindfulness just 2 years before.

And yet, as I was feeling this experience of immense grief, which was both confusing and familiar at the same time, I think a deeper, wiser part of me was beginning to seek new ways to understand and be more skillful with the complex nature of reality and suffering.

This time in my life reminds me of the German poet Rainer Maria Rilke’s words about what I’d call “practice.”  He said:

What is required of us is that we love the difficult and learn to deal with it. In the difficult are the friendly forces, the hands that work on us.  Right in the difficult we must have our joys, our happiness, our dreams: there against the depth of this background, they stand out, there for the first time we see how beautiful they are.

I believe in 2006, at that place of some 5 years of yogic movement and grieving the most recent loss, I felt the hands working on me.

This process began organically, as it must I suppose; it seems there can be no forcing in the life of the spirit- which is simultaneously fortunate and unfortunate.

I would later go on to other books and study to further expand my understanding of yoga.  One favorite was Living Your Yoga: Finding the Spiritual in Everyday Life by Judith Lasater.

Again, like with Ms. Turlington’s book Living Yoga: Creating a Life Practice, my first pass through this book began at a more surface level.  For example, I thoroughly enjoyed just reading the chapter titles like “Letting Go,” “Patience,” and “Impermanence.”  

But later, in the second and third pass, new levels of understanding were beginning to take shape. Aided, no doubt, by my additional exploration of my own psyche in psychotherapy which allowed for greater self-awareness and complimented yogic philosophy beautifully.

In one favorite paragraph from Living Your Yoga, Ms. Lasater says yoga practice is “the consistent willingness to open to life in all of its joy and pain.”  She then goes on to explain that this willingness is required both on and off the mat. 

Yoga practice, she says,

certainly includes what you have always thought of as your yoga practice, such as poses, breathing exercises, and meditation. But it also casts a wider net to encompass frustration with your temperamental car, the argument you had with your friend, washing your dinner dishes, and your apprehension about an important meeting.  In other words, to practice is to pay attention to your whole life: your thoughts, your bodily sensations, and your speech and other actions.  As you do, you will discover that nothing is separate from anything else…Each moment of your life is a moment of potential practice.

Thinking back to this earlier chapter in my spiritual life can make me a little sad inside.  I long to reach across time and give that confused twenty something year-old version of me a hug while whispering in her ear: “Take a breath.  Relax as it is. Be patient. Everything will be understood in due time.”

What early “off the mat” experiences did you have? What would you tell your younger self about the spiritual and/or yogic journey?