Fourth Form of Madness

Wow time flys when you are not blogging! I would love to claim writers block but the truth is I have been plagued by disinterest and laziness when it comes to blogging. Anyway a two year break has allowed me time to mature and develop as a writer and experience life in its many different shades.

One of the biggest things to happen for me is I fell in love with yoga! I have become a “yoga bore” according to many around me (okay my husband). Like any new passionate relationship I threw myself head first with total abandon into the raptures of its being. I practiced yoga, I read yoga, I theorized yoga, I contemplated yoga, I talked and talked and talked yoga, and I dreamed yoga. I meditated, I practiced pranayama, I attended workshops and then I would practice some more for good measure. And then……..I was exhausted and broken and I could no longer ignore the physical and mental pain I was in.

I was in constant pain as I had a shoulder injury that I had practiced on for several months (okay 7 months) without acknowledging the pain and mentally this aggravated several other aspects of my being that needed some honest assessment and attention. Unbeknown to me at the time, I had reached a point of “being” rather than “doing” – I was forced into this point by my body, when my mind and spirit had failed to stop me, my final frontier, my saviour in this case, my body, came to the rescue and said a very loud and very clear “STOP”. I stopped and the healing was able to begin. Just like when you have eaten something bad and your body has to expel all the toxins before it can be well, I began to expel some of the toxins surrounding my soul. It was an excruciatingly painful and dark time for me, in this time I believe I began to understand “loneliness” and hopefully started to make friends with it (or at least exchanged email addresses).

Throughout this witheringly painful period I did hold to a faith that had been in me all along, a real love that yoga led me to and “plugged” me into, a love of God. I know these days we aren’t meant to mention God anymore as we are all meant to be so secularized but if a human doesn’t acknowledge their source then they are like a river that refuses to acknowledge that their existence is from the sea. I don’t chose to define God to anyone – that is your own job, to find your own definition of God, to acknowledge God to yourself and to live the path that this definition provides you. Your own personal God path is exactly that – your own, it should never be enforced upon others as it is a great injustice to rob anyone of their own right of passage to God and this is truly your birth right. Let everyone find their own path. Your path is within you, you just need to stop.

I still love and practice yoga. I have changed the style of yoga I do and I have started home practicing more to adapt to my shoulder injury which is still present. I have come to see my shoulder injury as my teacher/guide, it tells me when my ego might be taking over in an asana and when I should remember to recenter myself. I have discovered a softer side to my practice which I am really enjoying and trying to translate over into how I live my whole life. I am grateful for the “life/personal development projects” that time on the yoga mat is providing me with. I am hoping to commence a yoga teacher training course next year and welcome the knowledge and experience this will bring.

Love and peace be with you all.