It’s been a real pleasure to share our happy news with you all over the past couple of weeks that we’ll soon be welcoming a new tiny yogi to the world – in just a few months (eek!)!! We’re really excited! Our little yogi is due to arrive in April, so all being well we’ve still time for yoga up until then. I’m planning on taking a few months off over the Summer to get acquainted in my new role as a Mama, returning to classes (in some form) in September.
So, big changes are coming! Change is always coming. In the month we learned that not even David Bowie is immortal, it can come as a shock as we are reminded that even our icons are truly human. This body is not forever; we are not unchangable. As I move through pregnancy, it often feels that it is my mind that is constantly playing catch-up with my ever-changing body. My body and this growing little person inside have no concern for my slow, resistant mind! I have come face to face – joyously, wonderingly – with the impermanence of being. Every day different. This is true for us all. We get sick, we get older, we get better, bigger, smaller, we tire, we recover. It is all ever-changing.
And yet, our human minds are conditioned to resist change! We like things to stay the same – often even things that we’re unhappy with! Rather stay within safe confines of what is known, than the risky ‘other’ – ever if that other may be better. We try desperately to stay the same, stop time, wish that things were as they once were. How strange we are!
But in a world that is constantly changing, living in a body that is constantly changing, our resistance to change can make us tight and anxious as we try to hold on to what we know.
And this is why we practice. To stay flexible, not just in body but in mind. Flow. One breath at a time. One breath comes into being, rises, peaks, releases and comes to an end. Just as our lives start as one cell, two cells, we come into being, and eventually we will all release back into pure ethereal energy. Just as the Universe itself was born of one moment, it too will eventually peak and return to energy. Everything is in flow. All of this is encapsulated in the single rise and fall of one breath. This is why we practice. To stay in touch with the flow of ourselves, the flow of all things and to welcome these state-of-being changes as events that will rise and peak and will pass into the next. To trust in change and our ability to flow with it. We practice so that our hearts stay open and courageous and not become tight in the face of change.
“Blessed are the flexible, for they shall not be bent out of shape” – Unknown