How I love when my yoga talks to me. Everyday during the first set of back bend, when I “fall back, waaay back” I get that pixeling dizziness. During the second back bend, no problem. Obviously it has something due with the amount of oxygen I don’t get in that first set. The two sets are exactly the same. I couldn’t figure this out for the life of me. Today I decided to move the oxygen around a little in the first set. Instead of taking that big inhale that the teacher suggests, I decided to just keep breathing evenly and normally throughout the whole pose. I also made up my mind to go at it evenly and steadily in my movement – maybe just not throw myself backward into it just because I know I can do it? Sure enough, I eased myself gently backward and kept the breath steady and even throughout the whole bend. I found myself staring at the back wall with no hint of dizziness at all.
Today my yoga started right off telling me the the way I’m going to approach my path for the Lenten season. A lot like Jesus did. I’m going into a very special forty day period. I’m going to breath evenly. Approach it mindfully. Relax into it. I’m currently not a practicing Catholic, but having been brought up in the faith, the Lenten season was something that always brought a bit of reason to change things up and end on a beautiful Easter Sunday, feeling very accomplished. It’s definite beginning and end also lends a good structure to making positive life changes, right smack in the middle of spring, the season of new growth. I’ve always liked the ambiance of it.
My yoga still wasn’t done talking. The next pose was awkward pose. Stand up on your toes, arms extended straight out perpendicular to the floor. Now sit down in the chair. Knees up. Balance on your toes. Today when I was waiting for this pose to end (it’s a tough one to maintain too long) I found myself thinking, just hold still, keep breathing and pretty soon she’s going to say, “Change!”
Change. The key word. At the end of my forty days I hope to come out the other side of Lent changed. I’m shooting for a level of patience and perseverance I’d never before attained. And, just as the II Timothy verse suggested, develop a spirit of self-discipline. I got a comment on that post that said something about self-discipline that stuck in my head. The person wrote:
“Nevertheless the problems which self-discipline can solve are important ones, and while there may be other ways to solve these problems, self-discipline absolutely shreds them.”
Shreds them. I love that term. Self-discipline will be my drug of choice to see me through this Lenten season. Now to list the things I’m going to do consistently for the next forty days:
1. Give up all alcohol
2. Afternoon cardio class at least three days a week
3. Take a course in pencil drawing and be diligent and disciplined in learning something new from scratch.
That ought to do it. And I’m going to shred them. (I think I have a new favorite word)
And so, as another day goes by, one more time: God does not give us a spirit of fear and timidity, but one of power, love, and self-discipline, and…I have written.
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