A Year of Yoga

2012 has come and gone, and we are almost a month into 2013. Looking back, I would say that 2012 was the most difficult, challenging and formative year of my entire life. I could write about so many things: applying to graduate school, graduating with my BA degree, leaving a community I loved, moving to a new city, starting a graduate program, starting my first "real" job, living alone for the first time, my parents getting divorced, my best friend moving to South Korea, or learning to redefine myself and my understandings of things like faith, family, identity, and purpose. While each of these things are important and worthy of analysis, I instead choose to write about what helped me cope, deal, grapple, and embrace all of these experiences: My Yoga practice.

Yoga was long something I was interested in, but I disregarded it because I was involved in so many other forms of exercise. I was also weary of what appeared to me to be the "new age" culture that sometimes coincided with the lifestyle. Quite frankly, all the hippie lingo and pseudoscience disgusted me. That being said, however, I had a lot of empty excuses for doing something that I knew would be good for me. It was not until a very dear friend surprised me with the graduation gift of an expensive Yoga mat that I knew I could no longer avoid the inevitable. I drove to my first class the rainy morning of May 14th, just two days after my graduation. I felt stressed and emotionally raw, but I can still remember being on my Yoga mat feeling like my mind was cleared and my body was strengthened from what appeared to just be 90 minutes of strenuous exercise. It was a high.

But, as I committed to a serious practice from that day forward, I realized that while Yoga certainly does lift my spirits in ways no other exercise has, it also has its torturous moments. Even if only for one hour, it forces me to do things that all go against my very stubborn nature: be completely emotionally/mentally present, be patient with my body, suspend my skepticism and cynicism, concentrate on the process rather than the destination, push through fatigue and bad days, abandon the notion of perfection, stop multi-tasking, stop comparing myself to others, and be in my body rather than my brain. In this sense, Yoga has given me physical strength and flexibility, but it has also "exercised" my mind in significant ways too. I feel like a healthier, happier, and more peaceful person.

If it all sounds too good to be true, maybe it is. I'm probably still in some kind of exercise "honey moon" phase. But, there's no denying that Yoga came into my life the year I needed it the most. When I look at 2012, I see many challenging experiences that at moments were excruciating. I also see a warm, sun-lit studio, teachers who said "Don't forget to breathe," a Yoga mat, and a body that--like my heart/mind--was eager to learn, to grow, to take new shapes, to cope with challenges, and to stretch; to stretch in that great, exhaustive, expansive way that tears down even as it cures, that causes discomfort even while it somehow offers great relief.

Right Places

I call this blog a "new write place" with the hopes of acknowledging that prior to this new stage of life, there was another place that I felt was truly right. The four years I spent at a small liberal arts college were some of the very happiest of my entire life. I was not only having fun, enjoying the people I was with, studying what I love, and feeling like I was making a difference, but I was also overwhelmed with this deep rooted sense that I was in the right place. I had an unwavering peace and contentment that I was in the absolute right place at the right time, being exactly who I wanted to be, and doing exactly what I was supposed to be doing. I never had this kind of contentment before, and truth be told, it was somewhat intoxicating.

One of my main fears then about graduating was that I would lose that peace and never again be able to find it. (This may sound dramatic to some, but keep in mind that this was in fact a fear and most fears are not rational.) In response to this, I have really tried to reflect on the importance of appreciating the stage of your life that you are in rather than pining for the better one behind you (or the supposed better one ahead of you). In Yoga class, we are asked to quietly reflect on a particular word and I will often dwell on "contentment"; that is, contentment to be here, in this place, at this moment, whatever that place and that moment happens to be.

But, that's really easy to utter in Yoga class and a hell of a lot harder to actually live out. I must admit that yesterday at my new university's orientation it was difficult for me not to compare this academic community to my old one. Often times I will find criticisms and negative comparisons floating across my mind. I was telling a friend about this and she encouraged me to do what I constantly long for others to do politically and ideologically: embrace difference. What this means is that I don't expect my new institution, new home, new friendships to be the same as what I had before; rather, I embrace that one is not necessarily better or worse than the other, they are just different.

This is profound advice. When those sneaky and unfair comparisons rage, I have to consciously remind myself although this place certainly isn't the same, it can still be right and good.  Besides excelling in my studies, that is my number one goal; to make right and feel right in the place that I am in. Like embracing and celebrating any kind of difference, this will have moments of discomfort, but it will also reap great personal expansion. I know that the key to real contentment is willingness to grow and be stretched as I embrace different experiences even while I continue to cherish the ones that are behind me.