Yoga Every Day
I am in graduate school full time, and I hate the usual things: I hate not being my own boss. I hate not getting enough sleep and having limited time to take care of my body. I hate PowerPoints. I hate fluorescent lighting and no windows. I hate multiple choice tests. I hate, hate, hate sitting all. day. long. I love learning, but I am not a big fan of school. During the exhausting, tedious work of memorizing body parts and enzymes and X ray angles, I do my best yoga.
I am a big fan of yoga—especially postures. I love beautiful bodies in picture-perfect postures lit by sunsets on beaches. Instagram is full of them. They often have captions like, “Yoga on the mat is practice for life.” What does that mean? How do you practice off the mat? What do postures have to do with it? Yoga postures are mini stressors that allow the practitioner to practice for the big stressors. That’s why it's yoga practice. Yoga takes place in messy, stressful, fluorescently-lit everyday life. Health and good feelings happen to be side effects.
There was a time I practiced asana—yoga postures—eight hours a day. I had six-pack abs and the smallest pants size I’ve ever worn. I thought practicing the postures was yoga. When kundalini awoke in me, my postures were taken from me. In a few days, I went from standing splits, head-below-my-butt backbends, and endless endurance to shaking prone on the floor. I was devastated. I missed the abs, but even more I missed feeling strong and calm. I had no idea how to achieve that state except through a lot of postures. My teacher, Yogi Desai, taught me how to practice yoga off the mat. I could feel strong and calm anywhere. My body couldn’t do asana, but I could do yoga anytime.
When the Scantrons were handed out first semester, my heart would race, my breath would shorten, and my mind would fill with anxiety. I used yoga to settle myself enough just to read the question and recognize answers. It took two semesters for me to calm down enough to be able think while taking a test.
Practice gives me physical and mental strength to accept and withstand stress. I know that a racing heart, shallow breath, and anxiety will pass. Triangle posture brings up similar sensations for about 45 seconds. I’ve felt those sensations arise and pass through me thousands of times. In triangle I practiced: feel my heart pound, accept it; feel shallow breath, accept it; notice my worry, accept it. I take a deep breath, and my heart slows. I bring attention my body, and the anxiety no longer dominates my mind. The point of asana is not asana. The point of asana is practicing yoga in a low stress situation so you can live yoga in your life. It just so happens that regularly attempting asana with good alignment also has tremendous health benefits. The peace of mind that a picture perfect posture silhouetted over a sunset represents is available at any time to anyone with any body.
With the Scantron in front of me, blood pounding in my ears, I practiced. Heart pounds: accept it. Breath shortens: accept it. Anxiety floods my mind: accept it. Breathe, slow the heart, bring attention to the body. Okay, I can read. I practiced with those Scantrons for the better part of a year. Finally, during my last neuroanatomy lab exam, I could think! My mind was calm, time slowed down, and I aced the test. Tests no longer bring on a huge stress response. I get a boost of nervous energy and am able to channel it. I still miss the feeling I got after doing postures all day (I can do them a few times a week now), but the state of yoga is accessible to me at any time.