Last night I was reminded that as parents we all practice yoga all the time, whether we realize it or not. We all put aside our own discomfort to care for our children and in return we receive the joy that is motherhood.
Which, I thought as I slept with my restless, sick, hitting-me-in-the-face-and-then-asking-for-juice son, is very much what a yoga practice is about, even if we don't use the asanas to remind us of it.
How I Practiced Yoga at 4 a.m.
I was surprisingly prepared to be a caring mother during the pre-dawn hours last night. Jake has a cold that has us expecting late night coughing fits followed by a wail of throat soreness and loneliness that precipitates the late-night-bed-shuffle with which the family is so familiar—Mike to the day bed in the office, Jake to the spot Mike has just vacated in our bed. (The dogs are generally unmoved by this commotion, probably because by this hour they have both given up the pretense of being deeply attentive to their human family and have retired to the greater comforts offered by the couch in the living room.)
Last night, as we lay back in my bed, Jake did not slip from my chest to the warm spot where his daddy had just lain as he usually does. Instead, he settled on top of me with that trusting, warm weight that sinks right into your heart and soul. It was lovely for a while, since I had already managed to grab enough hours of sleep to feel relatively alert and willing to sleep on my back.
Until I wasn't.
At first I tried to ignore the soreness creeping along my spine and the slightly nauseous feeling of my bladder being mushed into my intestines by twenty-five pounds of sleeping toddler.
This, when we are practicing an asana, is called "discomfort." Discomfort happens where we've felt, maybe, more comfortable, but where we can hang out anyhow if we can overcome our minds shouting at us to move, move, move! In this case, I was willing to endure a little bit of discomfort for the sake of my son. It's no different in an asana practice; we are willing to breathe through a bit of discomfort because we know that if we learn to transcend it we find the space to open our hearts.
Eventually, however, we all reach the point where discomfort truly, really, not just because our minds are suggesting it, turns into pain. This is the point at which I slid Jake gently onto the mattress beside me and he began to cry.
Here is how I know I wasn't just listening to my mind tell me I was beyond discomfort, how I knew it really was time to move: No matter how pitifully my sick child cried, I did not roll over onto my back and let him sleep on me again.
This is called taking care of yourself. In yoga, we take care of ourselves by learning to distinguish between mere discomfort—which opens us to new possibilities—and pain—which is not good for anyone under any circumstances.
I managed to calm Jake down and make him comfortable with pillows and the constant, "Sshh, I'm here," of my murmuring voice. He began to relax, to become sleep heavy.
This is when I realized he was sleeping on my outstretched arm.
It occurred to me that not only was I likely to lose circulation in that arm but that my willingness to do so—at least until I began to suffer that jumpy feeling where a limb becomes painfully numb—meant I was practicing yoga.
It was lovely, transcending discomfort as I lay there cuddling my child in the grayness of summer twilight, a cool pillow under my cheek and the soft gurgling of my congested child's breath filling the quiet room.
I wish I could say the night ended thus peacefully, that I drifted into a contented savasana-like sleep. (There I go again, alienating those of you saying, "Sa-what?" Savasana is the final pose in any asana practice, in which we lie on the floor, close our eyes, and let the practice sink into our bodies, hearts, and minds.) Unfortunately, I can't.
Because Jake suddenly sat upright in bed, his eyes wide open, and announced, "Eat."
"No eat," I responded gruffly. Guess I wasn't as rested and peaceful as I thought. "Time to sleep."
Jake considered this pronouncement for a short moment. "Eat," he finally repeated, this time with more certainty.
"No," I said more firmly, the Nurture Mother who had been tenderly cradling her child just moments before fleeing the room. "Sleep."
Jake continued to dispute this point, using his Bubbe blanket to emphasize his own arguments by bashing me across the face with it. Here, I see now, was another opportunity to practice yoga, to determine whether I was merely experiencing discomfort that I could work through by quieting my mind and opening my heart, or pain.
Probably it didn't really hurt all that much, but at the time I saw absolutely no benefit in allowing the beating to continue. So I rolled over and turned my back on the whole discussion.
This is when Jake began to wail. Serious, heartbroken, sick baby wails. Accompanied by a desperate scramble to climb back on top of my unyielding, resting-on-my-side body.
I'd like to say I rolled onto my back and invited my distressed child into the comfort of lying on top of Mommy, her own discomfort paling beside the more immediate benefits of generous mothering. But I didn't. I had reached what we yoga practitioners like to call my edge, the point over which lies pain.
I did, however, slowly coax Jake to spoon with me, pressing my belly against his perfect little spine and feeling his silky red hair tickling my chin. And when I awakened a couple of hours later, he was resting across my outstretched, slightly tingly arm and looking so beautiful I almost forgot to breathe.
At that moment, I knew precisely why a little discomfort can lead to a beautiful opening of your heart.
Finding Your Edge
Yoga teachers frequently remind their asana students to find their edge—that place where they are experiencing discomfort but not pain. Dwell in this place of discomfort, breathe into it and learn to be calm when you are there, I like to remind my own students, and you'll find your edge melting, allowing you to move more deeply than you thought possible.
Most of the time, when we're holding a yoga pose, it's easy to forget that going deeper means something much more than having the possibility of one day looking like the person pictured in a pose in that yoga book we bought a couple of years ago because we thought it would inspire us to practice at home but instead sits, neglected, beneath a stack of Dr. Seuss books in the living room. But how we look in a pose is so truly, importantly, not the point.
It's how we feel in a pose. For example, my hamstrings are reasonably open but will probably always be slightly compromised by the years of running I did before I discovered yoga and the concept of, oh, treating your body with respect. ("Run through the pain," my running partners and I used to tell each other by way of encouragement.)
This means I can hang out in pascimottanasana, or seated forward fold, with my hands wrapped around my feet and feel exactly the same thing as the woman sitting next to me who can't quite brush her toes with her fingertips. She's getting just as much from the pose as I am—the willingness to open despite the discomfort, the release of her lower back and realignment of her spine, the space to open her heart. And I'm getting just as much from it as the woman in front of me who can grasp her left wrist with her right hand below the sole of her foot with a bendy-ness you can hardly believe is human.
So, too, when we are riding the edge in the difficult parts of parenthood, we feel so powerful and loving that we don't much care what we look like, what the baby books or our mothers or the strangers watching us at the park say we should be doing. We know exactly how to respond to the temper tantrum that results when we take away the bottle with the splash of milk that's been sitting in it, unrefrigerated, for twelve hours. We know how much crying doesn't distract us from being gentle and patient and understanding. And we know the point at which the tantrum escalates so much that we cross over and need to just take the bottle out of the room and ignore the storm of protest that follows us. We don't question ourselves; we know that we have done what is right for us, and, therefore, for our child.
In fact, when I took away the old milk this morning I was amazed and touched and reminded of the beauty of confidence in a mother's love by Jake's ability to bounce right back and start grinning at the dogs sitting on the deck beyond the screen door. My own inclination under similar circumstances would likely have been to melt into a puddle of unloved self-pity. But Jake's smile is proof that I have opened my heart to him so fully, made him feel so loved—even in moments of discomfort—that he, too, can distinguish between the mere discomfort of Mommy taking away the sour milk and the pain I hope he never knows of feeling unloved.
Life makes it more and more difficult to hold onto such toddler-like certainty in being loved, just as our asana practices become more challenging as we become stronger practitioners. But if we always focus on our edge—whether in asana practice, parenthood, or life's endless challenges—we will find our way clear to inner peace, self-love, and just plain happiness.
Practicing Asanas—A Sequence
In my past pieces, I've offered a single asana, pranayama breathing exercise, or meditation (or maybe two) to address the issue that I've been discussing, one focused means of finding one's way back toward peace and balance. (Notice I said "toward," not "to," because sometimes we don't get there, and even if we do, we have to be prepared not to stay indefinitely.)
Today, I offer a sequence, a lesson in how to put together an asana practice. Because life is a series of moments and challenges, and moving through a yoga sequence awakens us to this lovely rhythm. And because I want to welcome anyone who wants to try a short asana practice. Mostly, though, I want to welcome everyone reading this to the YogaMamaMe community, in whatever way you wish to be part of it.
The Sequence
Start by sitting on your mat in either a comfortable cross-legged position or in vadrasana, or lightening bolt pose.
Close your eyes and let the rest of the day slip away as you bring yourself into the moment.
Follow with a pranayama breathing exercise, such as dirga pranayama, or three-part breathing.
Make your way into a gentle uttanasana (standing forward fold) with your feet hip distance apart and your knees slightly bent. Concentrate on releasing your spine more than stretching your hamstrings at this point in the practice.
When you are ready, gently roll up your spine until you are standing. Take a moment to center and find balance in tadasana, or mountain pose.
Do 6-12 rounds of surya namasakar, traditional sun salutes. I love these most of all the sun salutes because they can become so smooth and rhythmic, tuning the breath in to the body's movement. They feel like life when I let it move me.
Follow with a couple of standing poses, such as Virabhadrasana II (Warrior II) and Viparita Virabhadrasana (reverse Warrior). Try holding the poses long enough and deeply enough to experience your edge.
Then repeat them in a flow sequence—one breath per movement—moving into them through surya namaskar (at the point when you are in adho mukha svanasana, or downward facing dog).
If you choose to flow through the standing poses, bring yourself back to stillness and balance by performing vrksasana (tree pose).
Move to the floor and into janu sirsasana (head toward knee pose). Follow with baddha konasana (bound angle pose). In both, start to move toward stillness and a deeper understanding of your edge.
If you'd like, perform one back bend, such as ustrasana (camel pose) (repeating it two or three times). Back bends are energizing and heart opening. At the end of the practice they present both an opportunity and a challenge: the opportunity to open your heart to the world around you and the challenge of energizing your body just before bringing it back to calm as you close your practice.
You may also wish to perform one inversion before closing your practice. Inversions give us a different perspective and open us to even more possibilities when we leave our yoga mat. I recommend the gentle viparita karani (legs up the wall) as a reward for making the time and space to practice at home.
Always close your asana practice in a nice, long savasana to let the benefits of your practice sink in and to give yourself time to find your peace and beauty.
It may take a few tries to get used to any asana sequence. What matters is that you have fun. I truly hope you have fun with YogaMamaMe as well.
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