Judge the Man in the Red Yoga Shorts only if You Are Ready for Him to Judge You

The man in the red yoga shorts was in class again on Thursday. I wasn't the only one looking.

None of us, I assure you, were staring with pleasure. He was wearing the traditional yoga shorts that no doubt were the inspiration for European bathing trunks, the kind regretfully worn only by old German men who you wish wouldn't. These were red, very short, slightly baggy, and unadorned by, say, a shirt.

Now, one might take this opportunity to imagine a sort of Brad-Pitt-as-the-hot-hitchhiker-in-Thema-and-Louise type. Or maybe even Lt. Daniels from The Wire. (Seriously, that guy is CUT.) Alas, one's imaginings would be rudely interrupted by a slightly flabby, kind of hairy, sweaty middle-aged guy wearing nothing but tiny red yoga shorts. In other words, exactly the kind of person you wish wouldn't.

I glanced at him, then looked away, embarrassed for the guy. Around me, the room was full of similar head jerks accompanied by a slight snicker. Seeing two women looking at each other in shared amusement, I was struck by how very un-yoga-like we were being.

Yoga is precisely about non-judgment, about acceptance, about kindness. And here I was, stepping right into the camaraderie that comes with judging someone else.

I'm grateful that I saw myself in this moment, and that I put a little bit of energy into opening my heart to this man's intentions (even if I do think one might consider the folks on adjoining mats when deciding not to wear something to soak up one's sweat). Not only because it was the right thing to do, but because, as I've spent the past couple of weeks writing this blog, I've become more and more aware of just how crucial non-judgment is when you're a new (or not so new) mother.


The Power of Non-Judgment

Sit through one meditation practice, try one asana practice, and you immediately get why non-judgment is so central to yoga. Take me in meditation: Two or three seconds of a quiet mind. Random thought, usually about Jake. Gentle reminder to let the thought go. Maybe another second during which I do let the thought go. Unknown amount of time thinking about Jake's smile and the way he was dancing with his pink and camouflage soccer ball this morning. Harsher reminder to my mind to shut the f*&^#k up. Remainder of meditation time feeling bad about yelling at myself and worse about my utter inability to meditate.

Getting tangled up in judging myself for not being able to meditate is, of course, what makes me not able to meditate in the first place.

In this culture of success, all of us think we have the ability to do anything we set our minds to. Which means that if we were really good mothers, we would be able to keep our children healthy and happy and occupied and never upset while magically flourishing in our careers and personal lives and, by the way, never ever losing our patience. You laugh, perhaps, but I'll bet it's the nervous, guilty laughter of someone uttering a mea culpa. We know it's ridiculous to expect such things of ourselves, yet we do it anyhow.

And in the doing, we JUDGE ourselves. It's impossible not to.

Luckily, yoga is a practice, not a completion. We get the chance to practice non-judgment every time we notice the person on the next mat nonchalantly folding her legs up in lotus pose as we try in vain to get one ankle to meet the opposite hip. We can choose to berate ourselves for a shortcoming that: a) isn't our fault, and b) makes absolutely no difference in our lives. (Really. I have been able to do lotus my whole life, and I can't point to one situation where it's come in handy.) Or we can refuse to judge ourselves, do what we are able, and, one day, notice that we are able to do much more. Eventually, we might even make it into lotus pose. (Not that it matters, of course.)

The point is, sometimes we judge, sometimes we don't. But we always practice.

So, for example, I saw the man in the red yoga shorts and immediately thought, "What does he think he's doing?" Sorry. Couldn't help it. I really am fascinated by what he might have been thinking when he put those shorts on, by how he avoids the overwhelming self-consciousness that would consume me if I found myself wearing something so obviously ill-suited to the circumstances.

But then I had a chance to practice non-judgment. Both refusing to judge him and, just as importantly, declining the opportunity to judge myself for judging him in the first place. And that moment was far more important than the moment when I proved myself to be, guess what, a human being who sometimes judges other people.

And here's an amazing, beautiful benefit of actively practicing non-judgment: It makes you realize that other people are capable of it as well. So yesterday, when I was feeling a bit off in my practice, I let myself rest in child's pose without anxiously berating myself that the other students were going to look at me and think I was some kind of a weakling. After all, I wasn't wearing little red yoga shorts or anything.

Non-judgment, I guess, begets non-judgment, the same way opening your heart to others opens you to other people's heart energy as well.


Why Non-Judgment Is Especially Important for Mothers

My first thought when I caught myself judging the man in the red yoga shorts was how much I would hate for Jake to feel constrained not to be himself for fear of others judging him.

It's easy now to smile at the under-two's in his class wearing mis-matched clothes, gender-inappropriate accessories, and Play-Doh in their hair. Part of the pleasure of developing little people is that they haven't learned the rules yet. For a short time, they can be purely, innocently honest in actions that they will one day soon shirk for fear of not fitting in.

But what if Jake becomes one of those kids who marches to the beat of a different drummer? What if he gets into Dungeons and Dragons and starts wearing a black cape to high school and strides around sunk into his own space because everyone else is laughing at him? What if he becomes one of the shameless computer nerds who laughs too loudly at jokes about source code that no one else gets or wants to? What if he's a goth or a hillbilly or just that kid who picks his nose when he thinks no one else is watching?

Sadly, if he is any of these things he will have a difficult adolescence. But is it my job as his parent to reinforce the sad contempt of society for anything that's different? Or is it to support him in being the individual he is, to help him follow his heart, wherever it leads him?

I'm not setting those two choices up to show that one is the obviously correct answer. All parents have times when the right choice is to offer guidance, to lead their children down the path that we think will make them safest, happiest, most successful -- whatever it is we find key in our own lives.

The thing is, I had parents who steered me down the safe path, and I didn't like where it put me. Law school was safe. But my heart wasn't anywhere in it.

So obviously I'm drawing on my own life experiences as much as the teachings of yoga when I suggest that to me, part of good parenting is supporting my child in whatever he wants to be, even if I really, really hope he never wears a black cape to school.

Because a big part of yoga is learning to follow your heart. And you can't do that if you're too busy judging yourself for what your heart might urge you to do.


Not Judging Ourselves as Mothers

There's another, even more immediate piece of my choice not to judge the man in the red yoga pants: Not wanting to be so judged myself.

We've heard it as long as we can remember in a million different ways: Do unto others . . . Don't ask someone to do something you wouldn't do yourself . . . How would you like it if . . .? But does it really sink in? Really?

When Jake was an infant, we had serious breastfeeding issues. He wasn't nursing properly. I wasn't producing enough milk. I was feeling like a failure, sleep-deprived, hysterical. And supplementing him with formula. Lots and lots of formula.

Before giving birth, it had never occurred to me that some women don't breastfeed because they can't. I was reading magazines and going to breastfeeding classes that all made it perfectly clear: a good mother breastfeeds her child. If she doesn't, she condemns him to allergies and illnesses and stupidity and obesity and bad eyesight. Who wouldn't judge a mother who would do such a thing to her child?

Since I was so ready to judge, it was plain to me that other people were as well. I was certain that every time I pulled out a bottle in public I was garnering stares of approbation from people who thought I was a bad mother. Judging others begets being judged yourself. "It's not like that!" I wanted to yell. "I really try to breastfeed! I'm not a bad mother!" Except that I thought I was.

I'm certainly not the first to say it, but it bears repeating. If you judge other mothers, you should be ready to be judged yourself. And not just by them -- by yourself.

Which is, after all, the last thing we need when we're already doing the best we can.


Non-Judging Balasana (Child's Pose) and Sasangasana (Rabbit Pose)

It seems like I'm always saying, "You can practice this concept in any yoga pose." Duh. So I'll stop saying it. And I won't judge myself for repeating the obvious a few too many times.

But there are poses that remind us to be humble, which, I think, is a way of reminding us not to judge others. After all, judging someone else is a way of trying to make ourselves feel somehow better than them. Or, I suppose, just better. Which shows that the more apt we are to judge other people, the less certain we are of ourselves.

The greatest pose of humility, of course, is child's pose. I recommend doing it some time in the midst of a competitive class. Just show you can drop out.

Balasana (Child's Pose)

1) Kneel on your mat with your knees together, and sit on your heels. If this is uncomfortable for you, experiment with placing a blanket or bolster between your thighs and calves or a rolled-up blanket between the tops of your feet and the floor.

2) Lean forward so your torso drapes over your thighs, and rest your forehead on the floor. Let your arms drape by your sides, palms facing the ceiling in a gesture of reception. Or, if that's uncomfortable, rest them overhead on the floor in front of you.

3) Another possibility, depending on how you're built, is to spread your knees apart (keeping your toes touching) and rest your torso between your legs, supported by resting just a bit on your thighs.

4) The point here is to let your forehead sink into the floor. Let the pressure of the floor on your third eye chakra quiet the judgments arising in your mind -- whether of yourself or someone else. Let the humility of resting your forehead on the floor bring peace to your mind. Let go of caring what anyone else thinks about you. Let go.

Sasangasana (Rabbit Pose)

For a stronger, more active, more opening asana that grows from balasana, try the following. Note that you will be on the crown of your head, so be aware of any neck issues you might have. You will also be opening your heart, which isn't always so easy to do when you're in a humbling posture. So don't judge yourself if you don't feel ready for this one. But do let yourself try it some other time; give yourself credit for being able to grow.

1) Start in balasana (child's pose).

2) Place your forearms on the floor by your head, with your palms even with your ears.

3) When you are ready, press your palms into the earth, contract your abdominals, lift your hips, and roll onto the crown of your head. Your knees remain on the floor. Note how you have to activate your core to do this pose -- your fire, determination, base energy. What a gift to unleash this passion in the service of humility.

4) If you feel steady enough, clasp your hand together behind your back. Ideally, your palms should remain touching to prevent strain in your wrist and elbow joints, even if you have to bend your elbows to get them to touch.

5) As you are able, straighten your arms, pulling the palms of your hands strongly together, and start to draw your hands in the direction of your head, as if drawing a line on the ceiling. You may not make it very far, and you shouldn't care. You are opening your heart, a vulnerable place to be.

6) Keep lifting from your core, both to protect your neck and to protect your spirit.

7) After a few deep breaths, release your hands and sink back into child's pose. Let go of anything you may have released.

It's intense, sasangasana, so take some time in balasana to recover. An remember to practice a little mental balasana whenever the intensity of life and all its judgments demands it.

Shopping for Groceries without Jake, or Following the Path I Have Chosen

Wednesdays are my no-yoga-class days, when the 7 hours Jake is at school (and I'm not) stretch ahead of me like a pint of Ben & Jerry's waiting to be eaten without interruption. I imagine productivity the likes of which have never before been seen in a middle-of-the-week frenzy to do all the things that didn't get done last weekend and that I don't want to have to do this one. Inevitably, it turns out I can't quite eat that whole pint, although I do get to consume a few big chunks of something delicious along the way.

Yesterday I ticked off the items on my list with great zeal. YogaMamaMe posting. Check. Finish draft of arbitration brief. Check. And then, gloriously, a full two hours on a sunny day to go to Target and the grocery store before picking Jake up. It was like the last day of school when the bell rings at 12:30 and time is suddenly timeless and you feel young and sunny oh so relaxed.

That is, until I drove by Jake's school on my way to Target.

I hadn't planned on the drive-by. Usually I head to the interstate by the street one block to the west. But this time, since I was headed east, I thought I'd drive in that direction. Which I quickly realized was not the least bit more efficient than taking the western route to the interstate, as it required a bit of snaking through narrow hilly streets. Now that I am a mother, I believe one should drive slowly through neighborhoods, even if the streets are neither narrow nor hilly.

But I wasn't in any hurry. Instead, I reveled in the feel of a sun-warmed car interior and the fact that I managed to bring my iPod along for a change. Plus, I realized as I drew near, I was going right by Jake's school and the kids were likely to be outside playing.

Why is it that it is so much more fun to watch my son play when I don't have to play with him? At his school the time slips away as I grin at him babbling about the squirrel out the window or dancing to his favorite song. ("What Kind of Cat Are You?" for the record.) But at home we are both easily distracted -- me by the lack of anyone with whom to chat about how cute he is and him by the lack of teacher to show off to.

So I crept by in the car, searching through the short people until I spotted him on the porch, his back turned to the street, his head bent over something plainly very important. I smiled like an insane woman -- which, I suppose, we all are when we spot our child, unaware of us, being a little person -- and grabbed my cell phone.

"I just drove by Jake's school and I needed to tell you how much I love him," I yelled at Mike as I pulled the car around the corner and headed for Target in earnest. "I wish I could take him grocery shopping with me, but I know he's having a better time at school."

"I'm sure he'd be thrilled to go grocery shopping too," Mike said innocently. I didn't hear the rest of our conversation because I was too busy freaking out.

Why, I wondered, was I wasting my Jake-free time doing something I could do with Jake? Should I go and get him out of school? Isn't the only justification for sending him there that I need to get important work done and if I try to get on the computer when he is around he will either cry or, given the chance, bang on the computer until it freezes up and crashes? Do I have any right to leave him there, playing with his friends, when he could be with me?

And so it went. By the time I got to the grocery store I was twitching with annoyance at myself. Forget the lovely, sunshine-y day. Forget the glory of not being in a huge rush for a change. Forget how much easier it is to negotiate the aisles of a grocery store when you do not have a 15-month-old in the cart grabbing at the shelves as we pass.

I wanted a child in my cart. I felt naked without one.

Have you ever noticed how many children there are in grocery carts at 3:00 on a Wednesday afternoon? Probably a whole lot more when you are feeling like a terrible mother for leaving yours at school instead of having him with you.

I smiled conspiratorially at the mothers I passed, as if to say, "I'm in the club. Just going undercover today."

I promised myself when I got home I could read a whole chapter of Look Homeward, Angel uninterrupted -- so as to prove that I was doing something I couldn't do without leaving Jake at school.

And when I got home . . . I whined to my neighbors about going grocery shopping without Jake.

"You mean you did something for you?" laughed the newly-mother-of-two. I noted that she was allowing another neighbor to hold her one-month-old for well over two minutes without breaking a sweat. Impressive.

"Of course he has a better time at school," her partner said reassuringly. "Our daughter didn't want to go to school today and we said, 'What, you want to sit at home and be bored with us?'"

It sounded so simple when they put it that way.

"Enjoy it," said the baby-holding neighbor with a reassuring pat on my arm. She has several grown children, so either she knows what she's talking about or she has forgotten what it's like. Either way, I was happy to hear it.

I talked with them until I was late to pick up Jake. I figured they were as good as a chapter of Look Homeward, Angel. Plus, I knew if I stopped chatting the guilt would come rushing back and prove too distracting to let me read for 10 minutes anyhow.


Following the Path You Have Chosen

I've always been good at regret. "Should've, could've," I find myself muttering far too often in an effort to get the "I made the wrong choice" monkey off my back.

This kind of thinking, I believe, is a product of our minds telling us it is possible to control the world. If we make the right choices, the thinking goes, everything will be smooth and easy and we will live untroubled lives. Anything that goes wrong -- the pain that is part of life -- is our fault. If only we had chosen differently, it wouldn't have happened.

I'm doing it right now. "If only I hadn't . . ." Just testing the theory, mind you, but once I start down the path the pangs of regret start rising. Even when I know I don't control what happens, it's so easy to blame myself for the choices I made.

We don't control what happens to us.

It's that simple. And that hard to truly accept.

Let it sink into your bones. Believe it. For example:

Even if I hadn't chosen to read Look Homeward, Angel while Jake was brandishing the windshield scraper on the front porch after we got home last night, he would have taken a tumble down the cement steps. Maybe not last night, but eventually. Because children fall.

Even if I hadn't chosen to pin him to the diaper table this morning in a moment of sheer frustration over his refusal to let me change his diaper, he would have cried about having his diaper changed. Because children cry. And he would have forgiven me a minute later -- although it was still awfully nice holding him in my arms and apologizing anyhow.

It's not that it doesn't matter what we choose. All our choices lead us somewhere, no question. I'm not suggesting that life is predestined and you are doomed to your fate no matter how you approach it. We get choices, we make choices, we reap the goodness we put into them.

What we get to choose is a path. What happens on that path -- not much choice there. Sure, making good choices -- to keep our children healthy, to shower them with love, to show kindness and patience to our partners, to open our hearts to people who need our help -- makes a difference. That's karma, which is not really where I'm going here (a path I choose to pursue some other time in some other post).

My point here is simply that I made a choice yesterday. Beating myself up over whether I should have chosen differently -- if a better mother would have picked her child up from school and taken him grocery shopping with her -- doesn't make me a better mother. It makes me a wreck.

We make choices all day long, and lingering over whether they were the right ones keeps us mired in the past instead of present in the moment. Make the choices you think are best, make them from your heart, then move on. Doubling back isn't going fix anything.

Because it's not really about the specific choices we make, the actions we undertake every minute of every day. It's the path they send us on, the unrolling now in which we are challenged to live.


Trust Your Heart in Viparita Virabhadrasana (Reverse Warrior Pose)

This is all sounding a bit abstract to me, and perhaps worrisome to you. Is she saying it doesn't matter what choices I make? What if I choose not to respond when my baby cries? Is she saying that's okay?

First of all, it might be okay, in some circumstances. Like when it's the middle of the night and you think he's just crying momentarily as he tries to roll over while tangled up in his sleep sack. For example. As long as you are making the choice with love and mother instinct, then, yes, it is okay.

Which is my point. Follow your heart, make your choice, and don't look back. It's life, and as long as we live it with love, we're doing the best we can.

Viparita Virabhadrasana (Reverse Warrior)

Here's the pose that says what I'm so inarticulately trying to say. As you practice it, be aware of the transitions -- you start in a strong, upright Warrior II pose, balanced between past and future, strongly in the now. From there, you open your heart and lean back with trust. No second-guessing, just feeling the beauty of the moment and how you become even stronger for trusting your heart.

1) Stand facing the side of your mat with your feet wide apart, toes facing the same direction as your face. Lift your arms to the side and see if your wrists are roughly above your ankles -- this helps you find the proper position for your feet. (Advanced students may want to enter this pose from Adho Mukha Svanasana (Downward Facing Dog).)

2) With your hands on your hips, turn your right toe out to face the front of the mat. Turn your left foot in the same general direction, at about a 45 degree angle (if you drew a line from your left toes, it would intersect the side of the mat somewhere even with your right shoulder). I like to trace an invisible line from the heel of my front/right foot to the arch of my back/left foot for proper alignment.

3) Keeping your hands on your hips, root the outer edge of your back/left foot into the floor and, keeping your weight anchored there, let your right/front knee bend. Think of your right quadricep (thigh) stretching toward your hip.

4) Use your hands on your hips as a reminder not to throw your weight forward. Your hips should sit directly between your feet and your pelvis should remain level. The intention here is for your right/front knee to bend to a right angle directly over the ankle, but too often when we move there we dump our weight forward, over the right leg. Think of the knee over the ankle as the direction in which you are headed, but not at the expense of throwing yourself too quickly forward -- as if leaping into the future instead of living in the moment.

5) Allow your tailbone to release down and your navel to draw in toward your spine and up toward your heart. As your heart lifts, let your arms unfold to the sides so there is a straight line between them. Turn your palms down, feel the line of energy traveling strongly through your arms, and turn your head to gaze over your right/front fingertips.

6) There is a strong tendency in this pose to lean the body forward over the right leg. Resist it by anchoring firmly in the outer edge of your left/back foot, keeping your left leg and left arm strong, and letting your heart lift.

7) Be strongly in the pose for a few breaths, on your path, in the moment, a proud warrior.

8) When you are ready, let your heart sing and lift you into a slight backbend. Reach your left/back hand down your back leg for support and reach your right arm up and over your right ear, palm facing down as your right arm reaches for the back of the room. Turn your gaze toward the ceiling and keep your neck long.

9) Once again strengthen your back leg and feel the energy from the spot you have chosen travel up your leg, through your spine, and out the crown of your head. Let your left arm on your leg support you, but let the lift come from your heart.

10) Take another breath and trust the pose. Trust the path you have chosen. Face obstacles with all the strength and beauty of this pose.

11) When you are ready, lift your body back up to Warrior II, mindfully straighten your front/right leg, turn both feet to face the side of your mat, and repeat on the other side.

Oh yeah -- always repeating on the other side when you thought you were done. Just like life, you don't get a break just because you performed beautifully. But accepting that there is more work to be done and approaching it with grace and beauty brings the balance that come with doing this pose on both sides.

And, by the way, I'm not as tied up in knots as I probably sound over going grocery shopping without Jake. Though it sure would have been fun to have him with me.

Being Open to Change

I was stuck in the back of yoga class again yesterday.

This is not my favorite spot, for no particular reason, other than habit. I like being in the front, in my own world, diving into empty space instead of someone else's mat. No doubt books (or at least lengthy articles) could be written about one's preferred spot in yoga class. ("Melissa likes to be out in front of the crowd. She has ego-istic tendencies, preferring to be watched by others.")

The thing is, I know that a change of perspective is good for you. Many of us do, but few of us change perspective on our own. Too much going on, too important to have some sense of what needs to get done or none of it will, too hard to figure out any perspective different from the one we already have. So we wait to have change thrust upon us. Or to have a particularly annoying co-worker insist on it.

In the case of the yoga class, rather than try to elbow my way into a spot in the front row or pout about being stuck in the middle, I opened myself up to the change. And I learned some lovely things.

For one thing, I learned that there are genuinely nice people in the class. When first I began attending, I was saddened and a little bit frightened by the lack of warmth I felt, how people looked the other way rather than smile back at me. I wished for the electric energy of a shared practice and settled for my own. I felt like an outsider squeezing my way past the conversations taking place in the anteroom at the end of class. I lost any hope of finding my Asheville community at yoga.

But yesterday, as I stood on the side hopefully scanning the rows for an empty space that could accommodate my mat (and mostly waiting for the teacher to come make space for me in the front row) a woman near me beckoned. She and her friend pulled their mats over to make space for me -- unbidden.

Such a small gesture, yet so remarkable in a world where people rarely take the time to do even small things for a stranger. (How many people might have seen Jake's shoe and socks fall out of the stroller in Charleston without bringing it to our attention? Too embarrassed to yell, too certain someone else would do it? And how many times have I pushed aside a generous gesture with similar rationalizations?)

Of course, I said, "Thank you so much" with a big smile, and I got a smile back. We even smiled again a few minutes later when the teacher decided to make the women move their mats again to accommodate yet another latecomer. "That's what you get for being nice," I grinned, and we had a little bit of bonding.

It's lovely, I recalled, to practice yoga next to someone you like. It's lovely to be able to smile during a practice and not be the only one. It's lovely to imagine that people around you are happy.


Being Open to Change

After class, I spent some time thinking back to other small moments when I was introduced to an unwelcome change of perspective, something that jarred my sense of how my day was supposed to progress. I wanted to remind myself that being open to change as I was in yoga class would bring something good into my life.

Like last week when Jake had to stay home from school -- again -- because he had an inoculation-induced fever and wasn't allowed back for 24 hours. ("I don't think it counts if it was from his shots," his girlfriend's doctor-mother said when we were back in school. "I know," I agreed. "Unfortunately, he got the fever at school." At least I know next time I lie about him being fever-free, I will have a doctor's approval.)

There was a time when Jake staying home unexpectedly could throw me into a depression.

The problem is not -- as I hope is obvious by now -- that I don't enjoy spending time with him. It's that I enjoy doing things like, oh, making the money that helps feed him. It gets tiring being the one with the flexible schedule. Off Mike goes to put out another daily newspaper that will be forgotten when the next one comes out. Here I sit, planning out how I will spend the weekend writing about breaches of contract while Mike and Jake play in the park. It's enough to make anyone a little bit cranky.

But instead of feeding my crankiness, I took Jake to Health Adventure and then we had coffee downtown with Daddy. I didn't dwell on the fact that I had (have) a huge legal project to do or that a friend was coming for the weekend, further cutting into my work time. I just embraced the fact that the Universe doesn't care if it's Tuesday or Sunday or your friend is coming to visit, and It certainly doesn't care when the arbitration closing brief is due, and sometimes I have to stop caring as well.

You have a child, you get surprised. A lot. It's the way kids work. They remind us that our illusions that we can plan our lives are nothing more than illusions.

Yes, you need a plan to make it through the day with kids, but a plan only gets you so far. You are going to get that call from school or that sudden aversion to refried beans or that new refusal to sit in the stroller. And you can either fall apart because of it or embrace a new direction.

Without Jake to thrust a new perspective on me every so often, what will remind me that it really has no bearing on this world whether I make every deadline I set for myself? How will I find the wisdom to recognize that small, still moments carry more beauty than big, planned ones? Who will show me the endless joy of a big baby smile that stops all the piddling details of life in their tracks and lets me live for one unbounded true moment?

I've never doubted that Jake is a gift. But what a gift he is.


Perspective with Training Wheels: Marichyasana

Like any beautiful child, any yoga practice offers us the chance to work on changing perspectives, whether it's something as simple as moving our mat to an unfamiliar part of the studio or finding a new way to approach an asana. Even in the most focused asana practice, our mind grabs at the familiar, focusing on a particular part of the body or one way of breathing.

It's impossible to observe everything that's happening in our bodies at one moment -- that's one of yoga's many beauties. Years into my practice, I thrill to discover new parts of my body with which I hadn't been familiar before.

Still, our minds figure if there's too much to take in, they'll just keep to the small piece that's easy and familiar. And, gee, doesn't it seem they do that in the rest of our lives as well?

So take some time -- on your mat or off -- to try looking at things in a new way. For example, spring offers all sort of possibilities for noticing your street in a way you hadn't before -- the way the white blossoms on the cherry tree next door float into our yard; the bright spots of the little purple flowers growing in front of our house; the way the sun hits the yellow house across the street and throws a little sunshine back into my office.

And to help introduce your mind to the process of changing perspective, try the following two versions of marichyasana.

Marichyasana A & C

1) To warm up, do janu sirsasana (head to knee pose): Sit on the floor with your left leg straight out in front of you and your right knee bent. Let your right knee open out and rest on the floor with the sole of your right foot resting on the inner thigh of your left leg. If your right knee is far from the floor, try moving your right foot further down your left leg, toward the foot. (Do not rest it on your left knee -- that's too much pressure). Or place blankets or pillows under your right knee to support it. Fold forward over your left leg and let your left hamstring open.

2) In janu sirsasana, let your mind focus on your hamstring. With each inhale, find a tight spot in your hamstring, and with each exhale let it release a bit. Hold this pose until you feel an opening.

3) Move to marichyasana A. Keeping your left leg straight out in front of you, place the sole of your right foot on the floor next to your left leg (you should have just enough space between your foot & your leg to place your hand on the ground). Draw your right heel as close to your buttocks as is comfortable without slouching in your lower back. Take a moment to bring your mind back to those left hamstrings. Notice if this makes you feel more relaxed -- if the familiar is safer for your mind.

4) Hold onto your right shin and draw your torso long by imagining your head stretching toward the ceiling. Place your left hand on the floor next to you for balance and reach your right arm in front of you, keeping it to the inside of your bent right leg. Reach your right arm around the front of your right shin and back around the outside of your leg. This motion requires you to rotate your right arm so your right palm is facing behind you.

5) Reach your left arm forward and circle it in the same way (palm facing back) to the left side of your body and around your back.

6) See if your fingers reach each other. If they do, grab fingers so you are bound. If they don't, either grab onto your shirt as an anchor or use a strap -- hold onto the strap with both hands as close together as you can comfortably place them.

7) Think about your left hamstring. Hmm. Nice to forget about your awkwardly placed upper body. Now see if you can shift your thinking. Start with your heart -- always a good place to draw your mind. Think of letting your heart sing and see if that melts your shoulders down your back. This motion will both relax you and make your arms seem longer so you can change the grip on the strap or perhaps touch fingers.

8) Bow forward keeping your mind on your heart. You don't have to think about your hamstrings (or your work or the grocery list) because they will tell you when they need you to stop. Instead, follow your heart and see where it takes you in this pose. Rest in that place and breathe until you feel relaxed and comfortable with the pose.

9) When your heart is ready, gently release your arms and sit up straight to prepare for marichyasana C.

10) Keeping your legs in the same position (left leg straight in front, right leg bent with the foot on the floor), hold onto your right shin to help you sit up straight again. Notice how your shoulders feel and the lightness of your heart.

11) When you are ready, twist your torso to the right. Reach your right arm behind you and rest your right hand on the floor. Reach your left arm around your bent right leg, hugging your heart toward it. See where your mind has gone -- toward the familiar? The uncomfortable? Plans for dinner tonight?

12) Bring your mind to your heart and let it lift. Look over your right shoulder and enjoy the pose. If you feel open, you can bend your left elbow and bring it to the outside of your right knee. If you do so, notice what it does to your pose. Does your heart still have room to sing?

13) Now challenge your mind to change perspective. Focus on your spine, starting at the base and slowly working your way up. With each inhale, let your heart sing and the crown of your head reach toward the ceiling. With each exhale, let the part of the spine you are focused on twist a little bit more deeply.

14) When you are done following your spine (which, incidentally, includes your neck as well), notice what you are looking at and see what that does to your pose. Close your eyes and see if that changes things. Finally, let your mind go back to your hamstrings and experience the full range of perspectives these different pose variations have brought you.

When you are ready, release the pose and do the sequence on the other side (right leg straight, left knee bent). It's a lot for both mind and body, but I'll bet you see the world in a new way when you're done.

Breaking from Break, Part II: Back to Being a Mom

So, it turns out it's not as hard as I had anticipated to jump right back into mothering, working, and living at breakneck speed.

Except, that is, for those five minutes this morning when I was trying to change Jake's poopy diaper. He has now decided that a choice between lying down and standing up while being changed is not sufficient for his needs and prefers to dangle, loose-limbed, from my left arm while my right hand does its best with the diaper wipes.

Still, he is a joy, and being his mother above all else is a joy. But it doesn't keep me from thinking back to Friday night, gimlet in hand, wearing a new dress unadorned by smears of yogurt, talking about days not so very long ago when I had such a very different life.

Crying at the end of an old friend's visit, I have figured out, is more than a matter of not wanting to end the break from intense mothering. It also, for me, had a lot to do with feeling that person I used to be being sucked out of my body, as if it were attached by a string to Sam's luggage and headed for the airplane out of here while I drove sadly back home.

The wave of panic that overtook me as I pulled away from the curb had a whole lot of loneliness in it. I suddenly felt very small and very alone, surrounded by a big place called Asheville, a place I happily call home but to which I have so few attachments.

When I was single, I used to relocate roughly every two to three years. Which made me both very good at relocating and kind of crazy. Still, I loved the excitement of a new home. I'd inevitably unpack in a nervous, sleepless weekend, and then, in quick succession, join a gym, find a good dog park, and start a new job. All fruitful avenues for making friends and feeling connected.

It works a bit more slowly when you move with an 8-month-old. It was impossible to settle into a yoga studio when I was caring for him all day; and even after he started school, I found the mid-day class not nearly as camaraderie-building as my old 6:30 a.m. classes. You've got to bond with anyone else nuts enough to line up outside a yoga studio clutching her mat at that hour of the morning. We did briefly go to the dog park down the block as a family, but I spent most of my time talking to Jake rather than other dog owners, and we gave up with winter and one too many Audrey attacks on an undeserving dog target. And the new job? I'm just here at home doing the freelance thing. Not much of a social network in the hallway between my home office and the bathroom.

In fact, not much of a reason to get dressed in the morning at all, unless you count my brief encounters with the caregivers at Jake's school.

"Why are you putting on make-up?" Mike asks quizzically when he sees me brushing on a quick coat of mascara in the morning.

"Because," I mutter, hoping it sounds more convincing to him than to me, "I see other mothers who are on their way to work."

Does this mean I want to be on my way to work as well? I do recall relishing the ritual of showering, drying my hair, and choosing my costume -- I mean, outfit -- for the day. It's fun to click around the house in heels feeling like a character in, if not Sex and the City, at least The Gilmore Girls. Never mind that usually by the time I made it all the way to the office my hair had fallen into bedraggled tufts scented by hairspray and my pants had stretched out in the car so they bulged unattractively around my hips. And don't even get me started on how I looked on the days I taught the evening class and wondered where my carefully applied make-up had disappeared to over the course of the day.

But what about those years in my 20's, when I was living in DC, putting in my hours at a law firm, and tripping out at night for drinks, a movie, dinner -- whatever I wanted because there was no one waiting for me at home? What about all those years when I thought my body was a little bit flabby only because I didn't even begin to comprehend what nine months of stretched abdominal skin will do to your midsection? What about a life full of possibility and excitement and energy?

To be honest, just writing about it here makes it seem far less attractive than when Sam and I were talking about it.


Freedom Does Not Equal Happiness

It's easy to imagine we were happier -- or at least had the potential to be happier -- before we were tied down to motherhood. Because now we have no choice. We've made the decision to have children, and I doubt there's a one of us who regrets it. Still, there's a big difference between regret and missing the old days.

Most of what I think is magical about those old days is the fact that we hadn't made any permanent decisions yet. Regardless of how we felt at the time, we could always change direction, switch jobs, move to a new town. About the most radical change one can easily manage with a young child generally involves one's hair.

(I say that as someone who did move with a young child. It does not feel radical. It feels scary and a little bit stupid and mostly like it was done by a responsible parent -- better schools, more neighborhood kids, a big house for Jake to grow up in -- than by a carefree gal who could play the lead in a one-hour drama about cool professional women living in Western North Carolina.)

"I love change," I used to tell people every two or three years when I was packing to move to a new city and new profession. "I just hate the process of changing."

And this was before I had read anything by the Dalai Lama.

Having read a bit about Buddhism since then, I understand what I meant, and I understand why it makes me so sad sometimes to look back at those days when I seemed so free.

I was not happy by any means. I hated being a lawyer, and, after the initial sheen wore off, was wearied by being a law school professor. I was lonely, even though my basset hound Roxanne helped tremendously. I was tired of shallow, yelled conversations in bars and of spending every Sunday night glued to Sex and the City so I could feel not quite so alone but cry about it anyhow.

But what I did have was that ability to change things when it got to be too much, to start over, reinvent myself, take charge.

Here's what that means translated into my oh-so-limited understanding of Buddhism: It means I got to feel like I controlled change. And that illusion made me think that when I found the right place I could stop the change as well. Because I was -- I falsely believed -- in control.

Notice that every few years the deep wrongness of my belief caught up to me and I ran in a frenzy to a new place where I got to make big decisions for a while -- job, home, dog park. It didn't make me in control, just well traveled.

The truth is, change happens all the time, and we don't control it. The more we try to control it, the ruder our awakening will be. The less we resist, the happier we will be.

So, we have children because we embrace the change they will bring to our lives. And then they bring all those other changes -- the ones that take the polish off your fantasies and mire you in the realities of daily life. And we look back to the days when we could skip away chasing a new fantasy -- whether that meant moving to a new city or buying a pair of really high heels we might actually get to wear some time -- as something magical.

We think we had something then that we have given up. When the truth is just the opposite.


Change and Balance: Bakasana (Crow Pose)

Think of the gift of your children. Okay, you could spend the rest of the day doing that. Think specifically of the gift of change they have brought you. Every day something is different with Jake -- saying "cookie" in addition to "baby" and "dog"; no longer insisting on sitting in my lap when we eat at the table; and, with any luck, suddenly getting over his insistence that he neither lie down nor stand up when having his diaper changed.

These are all good changes, even the difficult ones, because they are the beauty of a young life unfolding. Reveling in them makes it a whole lot easier to deal with the other changes that happen regardless of what we do -- changes in health, in fortune, in friendships.

Those days when we were a lot younger and child-free? They're part of us now, just like the gray branches of the tree outside my window. After laying dormant for a long winter, the branches are beginning to bud -- something new bursting out of something old.

So next time I am sitting outside having a drink with an old friend, I'll talk about the days when I was young and single and I'll even indulge myself in thinking I was happier, prettier, more exciting and excited then. But I'll come home and hug Jake and snuggle into bed next to Mike, and -- I commit to this right now -- I will embrace the changes that have brought me to a place I wouldn't ever give up where I'm not so very in control.

Bakasana (crow pose)

Finding the balance between the changes that happen to us and the choices we make to change is always difficult and sometimes impossible.

The changes that happen to us can knock us off our feet. The choices we make to change don't always turn out the way we had planned. And yet these moments inspire us to find greater strength, and with that strength comes a new sense of centeredness. Finding our center, of course, is what brings us balance.

Bakasana is the foundation for all the arm balances. I offer it here because it emulates the process of balancing our choices with the energy around us. It took me some time to find my arm balance, but now that I have, I find nothing compares with the joy of floating into the energy around me.

If you are familiar with bakasana, consider using these directions to find your way into more challenging arm balances.

1) Squat on the floor and lean forward so your heels lift off the floor and your hands are on the floor in front of you.

2) Concentrate on your hands, as they will be your foundation. Place them shoulder distance apart and spread your fingers. Make sure your pointer fingers are pointed toward the front of your mat. Press into the space between your pointer fingers and your thumbs and, at the same time, draw your elbows closer toward each other so your shoulderblades come together on your back. This will feel awkward, but you will also start activating your balancing muscles. Consider all that you carry on your back and see how beautiful that can be in this pose.

3) Lift your hips and, bending your elbows in toward your sides, place one knee on each tricep, as close to your armpit as you can. Your toes will stay on the floor. To find space for this part of the pose, draw your navel in and lengthen your spine.

4) Lifting on your tiptoes, think about letting your heart surge forward. Don't forget to keep your elbows close to your sides. Feel a lift in your lower back by pulling your navel in toward your spine. You are combining that self-generated heat in your core with the energy of your heart -- freeing yourself to follow change while putting in the effort and energy to embrace it and work with it.

5) As you start to feel the lightness and lift of your heart and your core heat working together, continue to lift up on your toes and see if you can bring one foot off the ground. Experiment with lifting one foot and then the other, trying not to lose the balance of energy you had with both feet on the floor. Think about how this relates to life -- easier with both feet on the ground, but less open to the change that will inevitably come to us.

6) Ultimately, you may feel ready to try lifting both feet off the ground. You must trust yourself and the energy you generate and the energy around you, just like in life. It helps to keep lifting around your kidneys -- just above your hips -- and to draw your elbows in strongly. Don't be afraid to let your neck lengthen -- like sticking your neck out in the face of unknown change, you might fall, but you might soar.

Even if you are not fully in the balance, let yourself fly. Even with all the strength we must have as mothers, we can, indeed, soar.

Breaking from Break, Part I: Why We Are Allowed to Take a Break from Being Mothers

It began before I left to take my friend Sam to the airport at the end of his weekend visit. Panic. Anxiety. An unsteady feeling, as if the floor beneath me had disappeared, leaving me spinning my legs in an ethereal nothingness.

I thought about what was causing this feeling half an hour later as I pulled away from the curb at the airport and started crying.

Sam is a good friend -- so good that he served as an usher in our wedding. But he is not someone I see or speak with often. My life does not flow by checking in with his. In fact, he met Jake for the first time on this trip. While it is true that time does pass so quickly these days of motherhood I sometimes feel as if I already have one toe in the grave, when you go well over two years without seeing someone, you do not tend to fall apart when he departs after a three-day visit.

The anxiety, I think, had more to do with my visit to Asheville than his. For perhaps the first time since moving here six months ago, I was a little bit less of a mother in Asheville and a little bit more just me.

What I mean is, I gave myself a break.

Even before I had Jake, I was a person who felt comfortable with structure. But since his birth, structure has become a crucial way of life. It's good for him, I tell myself, and I do believe this is true, at least when "structure" means something flexible like "pattern." But it's also a way of knowing I can hang on until the end of the day, of ensuring that I have some quiet time to read a book, of avoiding crazed mornings because I know I will have prepared his lunch the night before even though all I want to do is get into bed with that book. As parents, we keep ourselves from going crazy by imposing a structure on the multiple lives for which we find ourselves responsible.

In imposing this structure, we also make ourselves a little bit crazier.

When Sam's visit was looming, I felt crowded, rushed. So much to do before he got here, so pulled between hostessing and mothering. My need for the structure was so great, I had trouble conceiving of a few days when it might melt and bend slightly.

And then it was Friday evening, Sam was here, and the sitter had arrived. We have used a sitter just once before, so the adventure of being Jake-less for a whole night is new to me indeed. Even newer -- in an I-once-used-to-do-this-regularly old way -- was finding myself, 20 minutes after the sitter arrived, sitting at an outdoor table enjoying a gimlet.

I will repeat this for anyone who knows me and knows I rarely drink anything, and then only half a glass of wine. I was drinking a gimlet. I was standing up from the table to head to dinner a little unsteady on my feet. I was a little bit loud and a little bit loose and uncomprehending of the headache that would creep up on me in the next hour or two.

My buzz was a perfect metaphor for a weekend where I didn't worry about structuring our sightseeing around Jake's nap time -- going so far as to wake him up when we arrived at the Nature Center. I let Mike take over the bulk of the baby duties without so much as checking in to make sure he knew that Jake likes his bread untoasted, screams if you try to help him maneuver spoon to mouth, and -- a recent discovery -- will go from sleepy to wide awake if you try to read him books at bedtime.

Some of you may recognize this behavior as Taking a Break. Many of you will not recognize it at all because you haven't tried it yourself. I never noticed how much I don't give myself breaks until I finally did.

I didn't realize just how much of a break this was -- and, believe me, it's not as if I abandoned Jake to the arms of his father and sundry sitters -- until it was time for Sam's visit to end. Because mine was ending too.


Finding the Balance in Your Life

I'd say it's a guilty pleasure to sneak out for a drink with an old friend and feel like a young, childless, attractive person again. Except that guilty pleasure would suggest a balance of guilt and pleasure. The guilt -- or anxiety or panic -- that arises when you have to return to mothering can easily outweigh the pleasure. If you let it.

Here's what I was really feeling as I left Sam -- and my childless, carefree self -- at the curb. I was feeling panicky at the thought of returning to my neglected work. I was wondering how I will avoid breaking down this evening when Jake and I play alone and I feel the bright, active, rested person I used to be slipping back into my past. I was dreading bedtime tonight, when Jake will remind me that for the past several nights we have been too busy relaxing with our guest to impose our usual bedtime ritual of dinner, bath, and to-bed by 7:30.

Superimposed on this normal end-of-vacation anxiety was a new cherry on the chocolate sundae that is motherhood. I felt terrible that I felt so terrible about returning to full-time mothering.

Here's the crux of the problem: We all need a break. We all deserve it. It is a struggle to believe that we do deserve it -- because who, after all, wants to take a break from being a mother except someone who doesn't properly appreciate being one in the first place?

Finally, we overcome the reluctance to take care of ourselves as well as we take care of our child, we give ourselves permission to get a little bit drunk, to be a little bit lax about our child's days, to let our partners stay home with him while we go out for sushi on Sunday night. And we don't want to go back.

That's a hard thought to have. It's not that I don't want to go back to having one-on-one time with my boy. Or that I don't want to get him back to a daily pattern that makes him feel safe and secure and happy. But all that beauty comes with a price tag. I am perennially tired; I have less time for myself; I have to be content to be a little less energetic, dynamic, pretty than I once was.

Recognizing the difference is akin to finding that one point of balance -- not tipping too far in one direction or the other, not thinking too much about it, not shifting energy once you find the truth. The truth that it is possible to love your child more than anything -- to be willing to make any sacrifice it takes to ensure his happiness and safety -- and, at the same time, to want a break from the work of mothering.


How to Find Your Balance

As I said, the thing about balance is that it's gone the second you overthink it. You have to simply let it come to you and sit with it. This is not something I'm good at.

I was unable to literally balance in yoga class for my first full year of practice. When it finally started coming to me -- in short, simple, tree-pose increments -- I was living on an ashram studying for my teaching certification. Hours of daily chanting and meditation, immersion in a yogic lifestyle, a vacation from the pressing realities of life -- these all no doubt contributed to me finding my way to balancing on one foot. That and the fact that the yoga studio at the ashram was carpeted, giving my toes something to grip to.

Only as I gained strength and confidence has my balance become something I can do without thinking. And even now it is precarious. I must work to not think, to let gravity shake me without giving up, to trust my ability to find my center and balance before crashing to the floor. Perhaps more importantly, I have learned to fall out of balance gracefully, without disruption, so I can find it again.

The secret -- as much as I have discovered it -- is in caring more about the process of finding balance than about being balanced.

If you think about it, our ability to engage equally as mothers and individuals separate from our children is short-lived. The second you find that place of balance, you are bound to think of your child again. Or -- probably far less often -- that mythical place we long to return to before we had childrren where we were always beautiful and vivacious and like nothing so much as Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, only with era-appropriate clothes that don't look quite so shockingly bad when we watch it again.

This weekend, by giving myself a break, I was actually achieving a rare moment of balance. I was with a friend who knew me before I was a mother, when I was in my thirties and even -- gasp -- late twenties and full of the energy that, frankly, dissipates with age as much as parenthood. At the same time, I was mothering my child, and no less for letting Mike put him to bed every night.

Once my reason for letting go got on a plane back to DC, I crashed to the ground.

Rediscovering my balance now will take something different. I don't think the answer for me is to let go of our daily rituals because -- as I said before -- I think they're good for Jake and at this point in my life I know they're necessary for me. I need to find a new way to balance when I have work to do and bills to pay and dreams to pursue in addition to a little boy to parent with my hardworking husband.

I have no idea how I'll find this new balance. I do know that once I find it, it will be fleeting and I will soon be back on the path to discovering a new way to balance who I am with a child. And knowing this, I feel the anxiety subside. Because I have found the grace to fall calmly, to seek balance patiently, to know that the point isn't to find it, but to live with the search, the place where the growing comes from.


A Balancing Challenge: Uttita Hasta Padangustasana

Standing balances are the place where calm happens for me -- because it has to. The more excited I get about finding my balance, the more conscious of the other students behind me watching me fall, the more likely I am to spend my time tapping the floor with the foot that is supposed to be floating somewhere near hip-level.

I find the standing balances the most calming because I am a person who tends toward motion. If you are someone who tends to be calmer being still, you may find better balance in an arm balance (like bakasana, crow pose, which I will discuss tomorrow) because arm balances are more heating.

For today, I offer uttita hasta padangustasana -- Extended Hand to Big Toe pose. Doesn't sound any easier in English, does it?

Uttita Hasta Padangustasana

I've read that this is considered one of the hardest poses in the astanga series. Which is sort of like saying Dulce de Leche is the most fattening of the Haagen Dazs flavors . This means you really do have to approach this pose as one about finding your balance, not finding the actual balance.

1) Stand in tadasana (mountain pose). Take a moment to find your balance with two feet on the floor. I like to place my hands in angeli mudra (prayer position) at my heart to find my center.

2) When you are ready, shift your weight to your left foot. Strengthen your leg, tuck your tailbone, and find your balance. When you have found it, start to draw your right knee toward your chest.

3) Each time you lose your balance, try to place your right foot on the floor gracefully and enjoy (ha!) the process of finding your balance and starting over.

4) When you can reach your right leg, either take hold of your right toe with the first two fingers and thumb of your right hand (this is called a yoga hold) or, if you have less flexible hamstrings or less experience with standing balance, place your right hand under your right thigh or calf as a support. You may also use a strap around the sole of your right foot and hold the ends in your right hand. The point is to find balance, so any tools you use that help with this purpose are right for you.

5) Slowly lengthen your right leg in front of you. Think of lengthening toward your body to keep your right hip from floating up and knocking you off balance. When you have reached the pose, stand still, counting 5 slow breaths.

6) If you would like to continue the challenge, you may open your leg out to the right. This requires thinking of your standing leg as rotating in (inner thigh toward the back of the room) and your floating (right) leg rotating out (inner thigh toward the ceiling). Advanced balancers may turn their head to look over the left shoulder. Hold this for 5 breaths. If you start to lose your balance, you may gracefully bend your right knee or return your right foot to the floor.

7) Return your right leg to the front. Draw your navel in strongly and let go of your toes. Place your hands on your hips and keep lifting your right leg up, pointing your toes, for 5 long, slow breaths.

8) Gracefully release to the ground. Repeat on the left side.

If you're like me, you will spend most of your time in uttita hasta padangustasana gracefully falling. Which is pretty much what I've been doing since leaving the airport. Because there's no way I can keep myself from losing my balance right now. But I can choose to do it with grace.

Learning to Trust (Including Yourself)

My favorite yoga class begins in 10 minutes, and I will not be there.

I ensured this outcome by eating breakfast a few minutes ago because I knew I could not be trusted to resist throwing on my yoga clothes at the last minute and dashing out the door. [One should not eat ideally 3 hours prior to an asana practice -- although many studios, recognizing the realities of our daily lives, suggest at least 1 1/2 to 2 hours.] The class is in astanga style, which means it has a set opening sequence -- allowing one to arrive late and slip right into the practice, sort of like finding your seat at the movies during the previews.

Yesterday I passed along the common wisdom that when your body is feeling ill you should not practice strong asanas. I then blithely proceeded to explain that I had every intention of ignoring this advice even though it came from wiser yoga minds than my own.

I arrived at my 12:15 yoga class feeling reasonably well. It was a little bit disappointing to find the last available spot in the very back of the studio by the door, but I recalled my own admonition to students that one should not become wedded to a single spot in the studio. Changing perspective can change one's perspective.

I can't say when it began to dawn on me that I wasn't in peak form. But I've practiced with less arcing sweeps of my arms; I've backed out of my twists; I've surrendered binding poses to the less intense versions. "Honor your limitations," I tell myself. If I were prepared to really listen to the words, I probably wouldn't have been there in the first place.

My first moment of doubt came with the adho mukha svavasana (downward facing dog) where I found myself wiping tears from my eyes. It wasn't that I'd cleared a particularly painful memory from my body or had a sudden flash of worry for Jake, who'd cried and clung a bit when I dropped him off at school. My eyes were just really watery.

Then I was in uttanasana, a forward fold, my head draping toward the floor, the blood rushing into it. And my eyeballs began to hurt.

This is a disconcerting feeling, hurting eyeballs. It's different from a sore finger or a cut knee. Eyeballs are not supposed to feel much of anything, ideally.

Still, I practiced on, trying to free my mind from this pressing distraction. What a good little yogini I was being -- using this opportunity to focus my practice. Or so I told myself.

Instead, I was really worrying while I practiced aerobics. What was wrong with my eyes? I wondered, carelessly folding over my front leg in parsvottanasana (pyramid pose). Should I be on my way to the opthamologist, or was this merely part of the strange coughing illness that has afflicted my family? I muttered as an assistant lifted my leg for me in standing splits. Even worse, could it be allergies? I thought, forgetting for the moment that I was even in pigeon pose. I've never, ever had allergies before, despite living in cities famed for inducing them, and to succumb now would seem like a defeat. Especially when I can barely muster compassion for myself for getting sick so easily. How great would it be if motherhood brought me allergies as well?

On I pushed myself, my mind ultimately and easily wandering to Jack, the one object I do not even try to coax my mind to abandon. Was he miserably crying for his mother? Were his eyeballs hurting like mine? What was I doing here?

Continuing to practice yoga -- erm, I mean, at this point, aerobics (you know, lots of body motion, no mind discipline) -- of course.

And then came the cough.

This was not a polite little cough. It was not a short fit, jarring to all in the room but over before anyone can throw you a dirty look. This was a gasp and choke and dash out of the studio, eyes watering. Finally, I felt grateful for the imposition of a new spot for my mat in the very back of the studio by the door. I grabbed at the drinking fountain and made desperate huhing noises as I tried to drink, breathe, and cough simultaneously.

Naturally, I returned to practice as soon as I was able.

I made it to savasana, corpse pose, with a new focus on relaxing enough to thwart the cough bubbling just below each breath. And with this intense relaxation I found a lesson. I was reminded of Trust.


Trust

Trust is one of those concepts like faith. It can be taken too far, used so broadly it loses its meaning, but used often because it sounds profound even if you don't really know what it means.

We hear it all the time as mothers -- "Trust your instinct." "Trust yourself, you're his mother." -- but I wonder how sincerely we take it to heart. I doubt many of the people saying it are all that sincere themselves. "Trust your instinct," someone might say as you resist giving your child Robitussen PM to help him sleep through his cough. At the same time she is thinking, "What a cruel and selfish mother, denying her child the medicine that will make him feel better. I wouldn't make my child suffer for my own principles." Even though I will probably give Jake Robitussen if he coughs tonight like he did last night -- to the point of choking -- I will hear the judgment in that person's voice. She will be telling me to trust myself, but I will hear "trust" as something that is less than absolute.

It's often the same thing when I say it to myself. "Trust yourself," I'll chide, as I endlessly debate whether Jake needs to sleep covered with a quilt in addition to his sleep sac, wonder whether I should just turn the heat up so he can sleep even if I can not, and resist the urge to creep out of bed in the middle of the night to make certain he has not wound himself up in the quilt and stopped breathing. The thing is, I don't really trust myself, or I wouldn't revisit the issue the next night.

And so, yesterday, I didn't trust myself when I wrote that one should probably skip a strenuous asana practice when laid a little bit low by illness. What I really heard was my mother saying, "Go to school, you're not that sick" and myself thinking, "If you can move, you can practice yoga."

More fundamentally, I didn't trust my body. I figured I'd move past the ache in my muscles. I'd be stronger than the bug that's taken up residence in my lungs. I'd ignore the fact that I haven't had a real night of sleep in close to a week, thanks to sleeping next to a fretful, coughing baby. (Thank you, thank you, Mike, for ceding the daybed to me last night.)

It's a fine line -- trusting our bodies while still transcending discomfort in our yoga practice. It requires us to really examine what "discomfort" means. Surely it means losing some sleep when we have young children. But does it mean if I can keep pushing myself to be the one who gets no more than a few hours of rest next to Jake every single night, I should? At some point, my body should have a say.

I'm about to say, "It's the hardest thing about motherhood," yet I know I'll find something else equally hard to report in the next few days. But, really, it's got to rank near the top of the list. How do we trust ourselves when we're supposed to be perfect mothers to our kids? How do you trust your instinct about how to best care for your child and yourself when you can always push to do more?

I sure don't have this one figured out. But then, don't for a second believe I have figured out any of the things I've commented upon here. All I can do is offer some wisdom from yoga to help approach them. And all I can offer now to help us figure out the issue of trust is . . . trust.

That, I suppose, is why they call it a practice. You try and try and try and then, for one precious, crystalline moment, it just is. Trust.


A Trusting Pose: Urdhva Danurasana (Upward Facing Bow)

You actually show trust every time you put yourself in a yoga pose. You trust that your teacher is presenting the poses in a way that is beneficial and won't hurt you. You trust that your legs will support you, your muscles will hold, the energy around you will infuse your body. You trust that the person on the mat next to yours won't fall over and bring you crashing to the floor with her.

So take a moment to be in that trust. Grasp for a moment the delicate state of not grasping too hard for it.

Then try urdhva danurasana, upward facing bow.

Urdhva Danurasana

If you are still new to yoga, or if you have any back issues, please do not practice this pose. It requires great strength and flexibility, and you must trust yourself to know truly whether you have enough to protect yourself as you try it. You can gain many of the same insights practicing setu bandha sarvangasana, or bridge pose.

1) Lay on your mat with your knees bent and your feet flat on the floor. You should be able to just brush your heels with your fingertips.

2) Take a moment to let your sacrum (lower back) melt into the mat. Draw your tailbone toward your heels and your navel toward your spine and up toward your heart. Let your shoulderblades rest on the floor, far from your ears.

3) Place your hands near your ears, elbows facing the ceiling, fingers pointing toward your shoulders. Try to draw your elbows toward each other so they are pointing directly at the ceiling, not splaying out to the sides. Appreciate the energetic space you have created between your arms.

4) When you are ready, lift your hips off the floor. Trust your heart to lift after them, allowing you to lift your head briefly and rest the crown of your head on the floor. (Even if you are practiced at this pose, I suggest taking this step.) Your heart should continue to guide you, so you feel light and don't place too much weight on your head.

5) I know it's awkward here, but trust your body and heart to support you as you realign yourself. Draw your elbows toward each other again and feel the energy this creates. It may help to move your hands slightly so your fingers point toward your neck. Feel your knees in a straight line -- not too close to each other, not splaying out to the side -- and note the energy this generates.

6) When you are trusting of the energy you have created and the openness of your heart, let your heart lift you up as your arms straighten.

7) If you feel any pain or fear, lower yourself down. Try to tuck your chin so you land on the back of your head instead of the crown. (It's much easier on your neck.) Relax and observe how you trusted yourself to begin the pose. Feel gratitude for the huge amount of trust it took to back out before you hurt yourself.

8) If you make it all the way up and trust you can maintain this pose, work on pressing your palms and feet into the floor, lengthening your spine, and letting your heart sing. Be sure to keep your neck relaxed -- I often find myself looking toward my feet, but this position compresses the neck.

9) If you have done urdhva danurasana many times, and this pose is not challenging you to discover trust, try some variations: Lift one leg at a time off the floor, drawing the knee into your chest and then straightening your leg as if you are going to stand on the ceiling (bend the knee into the chest before placing it back on the floor); lift one arm at a time off the floor by shifting your weight to the other arm and trusting your back strength to hold you (to fully engage in this variation, place your lifted hand on your hip for a moment); or try to lift opposite hand and foot at the same time (right hand/left foot; left hand/right foot).

Take this sense of trust with you off of your mat and into your day. Practice trust constantly. And be kind to yourself when you have trouble finding it.

Trust that you will.

Taking Care of Yourself When You're Sick Instead of Pretending You're Not

Once again, Jake is sick and -- despite my best efforts at denying it -- so am I.

Just a cough and a scratchy throat. Plus this weird thing where I wake up with my eyes all puffy and glued shut. But enough for me to feel tired and defeated and like a complete wuss.

Used to be, I got a cold every time the weather changed. This is not such a huge deal when you grow up in Los Angeles, where the weather rarely changes. But it becomes more of a burden when you go off to college in Rhode Island, where there is plenty of weather (most of it kind of nasty).

I first became aware of this pattern during my junior year, after three years of surviving primarily on keg beer, french fries dipped in a regretful concoction of yellow mustard and mayonnaise, and sad scraps of iceberg lettuce deemed the "salad bar" at the dining hall. I slept about as much as any college student, wore insufficient clothing for the weather, and considered the "dance aerobics" class in the gym -- in which we rocked from heel to toe to the tune of Bruce's "Glory Days" -- real exercise.

Slowly, over the years, I began to give my body a fighting chance. Living in Boston after college, I caught on to the benefits of mad bouts on the Stairmaster blasting a pre-Idol Paula Abdul's "Forever Your Girl" on my Walkman. Unfortunately, the walks home in the snow with sweat-wet hair probably didn't help fight off any viruses.

I also learned to run, compliments of one of my Boston roommates. I kept it up when I moved to New York, where the combination of running and enthusiastic early-90's step aerobics (remember those weird over-the-tights underwear thingies we wore?) should have boosted my immune system. If the depression wrought by law school hadn't laid it low.

It took many more years and many more modes of calorie-burning for me to finally settle into something that was good for my body and my spirit, the key, I am convinced, to good health. I am only pointing out the obvious when I reveal that that something was yoga.


Treating Your Body with Respect

I'm not saying yoga magically makes you impervious to illness, that it is the slam-dunk solution to the annual "should I get a flu shot?" dilemma. (I never have, but not without some worries now that I have an toddler who, by all rights, should also have a flu shot. But by the time I finished dragging my feet about getting him one, the only ones available had thimerosol in them, so end of discussion.)

But I do believe that truly practicing yoga makes it a whole lot easier to avoid the tangled mess of western medicine, where you take one drug to make you better and another to counteract the side effects of the first and then come down with an odd strain of the disease that the meds don't address anyhow.

I don't mean the kind of yoga practice where you go to class three days a week and sometimes carry your yoga mat out to the car just to look like you're cooler than you are. I'm talking about practicing in your life. I'm talking about practicing yoga when you eat -- choosing unprocessed foods, foods you prepare yourself, foods that feel nourishing and grown from the earth. I'm talking about calming your mind to ease your stress levels. I'm talking about honestly getting enough sleep (when a yelling, coughing 15-month-old isn't interrupting it for you). I'm talking, in short, about treating your body with respect.


How Do I Respect Myself When I'm Sick All the Time?

See, I've just set myself up. Because if I am getting sick all the time again, it must be because I have let my yoga practice go.

Well, of course I've let my yoga practice go. I have a 15-month-old child. I can't possibly get enough sleep, prepare healthy food, practice asanas and pranayama daily, and approach life through a calm haze of mindfulness. That's the whole point of this blog, the whole point of the website that will one day grow out of it (when I have time, when I have time), the whole point of the book idea that gave rise to it all.

Compounding the problem of practicing yoga when you have a young child, the bugs are all coming to our house in the body of that same 15-month-old. Two months ago, when he was recovering from a scary bout of viral pneumonia, Mike asked the doctor if there was anything we could have done to help prevent it. "You aren't smokers, are you?" she asked. We shook our heads in a vigorous and unmistakable couple of NOOO!'s. "Does he go to daycare?" she continued.

I must have turned white. Or maybe just choked a little.

The doctor was quick to tell me it wasn't my fault my child had viral pneumonia. "You can't beat yourself up," she said so quickly and practically that I know her children once attended daycare as well. "Either he gets sick now or he gets sick in kindergarten," she finally assured me. I tell myself this all the time.

So. Not only am I responsible for my child's illness, not only does he bring the viruses home to share with me and Mike, but I am also responsible for ultimately contracting them myself because I don't practice my yoga with enough dedication. I don't practice my yoga with enough dedication because I am busy nursing my sick boy while dealing with my own illness.

There's only one thing to do. Let it go.

Really. So I have a little cough. It's actually a whole lot less annoying than the sinus infections I kept getting during the winter. At least now I don't have to pant my way through yoga classes, grabbing slimy bits of tissue from under my mat for a quick blow during down dog. And if I pop a couple of Tylenol now and then, big deal.

Yoga, I am reminded over and over, isn't about being perfect. It's about embracing our imperfections, and the messy, uncontrollable quality of life. By getting sick, I am actually gaining the opportunity to practice yoga just as fruitfully as I did when I went through a pancha karma cleanse and was the healthiest person within a ten-mile radius. (Mike will no doubt dispute this, having witnessed me eating nothing but kitchiri -- a gloopy, tasteless concoction of rice, dahl, and ghee -- for six weeks.)

Plus, when I'm feeling tired and a little bit achy and weak, it's kind of nice having an excuse to just be still and reflect for a moment. A little bit of a hooray! for being sick.


A Restorative Pose: Supta Baddha Konasana (Reclined Bound Angle Pose)

I can't recommend undertaking a vigorous asana practice when you're sick. I know many teachers do not recommend it. Thing is, if I can manage a single cadarana (push-up), I generally will go to class, and I usually end up feeling kind of better.

If you are going to practice asanas while your body is battling illness, at least take the opportunity to be honest about your body's limitations. Let it be a humbling experience; take advantage of the fact that your ego is necessarily going to be body-checked at least once or twice during the practice.

Better yet, stay home and practice another restorative pose. They don't call them "restorative" for nothing.

Supta baddha konasana (Reclined Bound Angle Pose)

Reclined bound angle. Sounds lovely, doesn't it? Well, if it doesn't, it will once you experience it.

1) Sit on the floor comfortably. Take a folded blanket and fold it in thirds, like a letter. Place it behind you, with the folded end against your sacrum (lower back). The long end should extend behind you, where your spine will rest when you recline.

2) If you have a belt, draw it around you so the middle rests on your sacrum and you hold one end in each hand. Draw the soles of your feet together so your knees move out to the sides. Let each end of the belt go over your thighs (it will be like a line under your inner knees) and then draw the ends together under your feet. Pull the ends to one side so you can loop one end of the belt through the buckle. Tighten it gently -- it should not be too tight because it will get tighter as you recline. You are now in a supported baddha konasana.

If you don't own a belt, no worries. Just let your feet rest together and your knees open outward. At least you don't have to figure out those confusing instructions for how to use it.

3) In either case, place some pillows or blankets under your knees so they have something to sink into for support.

4) Remembering to keep the belt slightly loose around your legs, slowly recline onto the blanket behind you. Your spine should feel comfortably supported. You may push a wrinkle into the blanket behind your neck for additional support or, if the blanket is not long enough to support your head as well, place another blanket under it. The key is to do what's comfortable for your body.

5) Tighten the belt until you feel you have reached your edge -- the spot where you feel just a bit of discomfort but do not feel pain. The discomfort will melt away quickly; pain will only get worse and call your bluff.

6) Let your arms open about 45 degrees from your sides, palms up in a gesture of reception. Your shoulders should start to open outward and toward the floor with the gentle pull of gravity.

7) Relax your knees into the pillows or blankets or belt supporting them. Slowly let go and trust that you are safe and supported.

8) Close your eyes and spend some time seeing where you are tense and where you can let go. Breathe through your nose if you can, lengthening your exhales to release the toxins, inhaling deeply to draw energy into your tired body.

9) Stay here for as long is it feels good. You can pull gently on the belt to tighten it as your hips release. Remember to go only to your edge, the place where you are able to release.

10) When you are ready to come out, try to loosen the belt while you are still reclining, if possible. Use your hands to gently guide your knees together so your feet slip out of the belt and rest on the floor. If it feels good, draw your knees toward your chest for a moment to release your back. Then roll to your right side and rest here before helping yourself up to a seated position.

It may not work as well as chicken soup, but at the very least, this pose should relax you for a nice, rejuvenating nap. Maybe I'll try it after my strenuous yoga practice.