Learning to Breathe

It’s only the middle of the week, but it feels like this one has stretched on an on. Maybe it’s because I’m excited for my NYC birthday trip on Friday.  Or maybe it’s because this week has just been … long.  Either way, I’m reminding myself to find moments of grace in the progression of days.

On Monday, it was damn near impossible to find anything that resembled grace.  Work was for shit, traffic sucked major ass, my words wouldn’t flow. What kept me sane was an hour of devotion-based yoga.  In Sanskrit, the word for devotion is Bhakti.  

Every time I sit on my mat for a devotion based practice, I come back to what Natalie said when I first joined her studio.  “Do you have the time?  Are you sure you’re ready for this?”  I had come to her, a wayward runner cum yogini, hell bent on finding my center after many years of being lost.  That question has ponged in my head since she asked it.  I don’t know if I’m ever sure I’m ready for anything, but like everything else I do in this life, I plunged full on into the yogini life.  Now, looking back, I know that Spirit not only guided me to her and her studio, but also to the path that embracing devotion will create.

So.  On Monday, I wasn’t sure if I was ready to step onto my mat and try to offer the world a piece of myself.  Sometimes, after fracturing between the office, grad school work, my own writing, and trying to find time to give myself to those I hold dear, I’m left feeling vacant and hollow.  Time is such a bitch that way. 

But I moved through the poses, practiced devotion as well as I know how, and finished the lesson.  It provided me enough clarity to transition through the evening into the next day.  I guess it all comes down to the amount of time that one is willing to actively offer toward devotion.  It’s easy to say that I give of myself, my time, my heart.  But to put that into practice, to fully engage in mindful living is harder.  Sure there will be more days when traffic sucks ass, when I can’t write a sentence worth reading, when I’m just … off.  Coming back to my Bhakti practices will help those times seem less intense.