Valentine’s Day: Part II (Tough Love)

Warning:  Tonight was, by far, my worst, hardest class yet in this 30-day challenge. Also, this week has been, by far, one of the top-five most exhausting weeks in my adult life. And, let’s not forget, it’s Valentine’s Day. So, you do the math. This might be a war story of a post.

So today was day 13. Maybe that’s why it was so terrible—unlucky number 13. Normally, I do my best to keep an open mind heading into a class. After all, every day is a new day, right?  When I walk into the studio, I try to leave everything I am carrying on my shoulders, in my body, in my heart and in my head right at the door, in the garbage can, in fact. But, today. Today, I just couldn’t shake the load from my hands.

First indication I was about to embark on a treacherous journey through class: my stomach would not stop reminding me of my poor lunch choice, which was a big hummus-spinach-carrot-sprouts-avocado-cucumber concoction wrapped inside a whole-wheat wrap. In other words, fiber overload. Oh, and let’s not forget the slice of Oreo cookie ice cream cake I had in honor of my coworker’s departure. And, lastly, please keep in mind my stomach has pretty much been in turmoil since I started this challenge, considering my body—and, yes, my digestive system—is in overdrive and so out of wack and confused as to what the hell I’m doing to it.

Second indication: within the first 20 minutes of class, my hamstrings kept seizing up into cramps. A low, uncomfortable pain, but tolerable. Except I already felt kind of crappy (see above paragraph). Also, my knees had this strange, burning sensation, like an army of little pins was setting up camp behind my kneecap. So, in the fourth part of the second pose, when you stand with your legs and feet together, bend at the waist, cup your ankles in your palms, and then pull your head down to your toes, you can imagine my discomfort—not only was my sess-pool of a stomach upside down and being compressed against my thighs, but I was also trying to lengthen and stretch my cramping, aching hamstrings and knees. Greaaaaat.

Third indication: by the sixth posture, standing-bow-pulling pose, which is one of my most favorites, I was shaky, anxious, extremely overwhelmed at how off my body felt, and desperately trying to hold on to my yogi thoughts of “deep breath, relax, let go, it’s okay, everything I’m feeling is just right, I need to move on, I’ll be fine.” I couldn’t reassure myself. I couldn’t calm down. Somehow, though, I finished that standing series, sweat running down my limbs like little Susquehanna rivers, compete with toxins and sewage and all, and then I promptly collapsed—very ungracefully, I should add—onto my mat.

Things didn’t fare well after that. I opted out of the second or first set of nearly the entire spine-strengthening series, when you’re lying on your stomach. At this point, I couldn’t decide if I should go try to throw up, which I don’t do very well, or if I should actually try to go to the bathroom, which is awkward because you can hear everything that’s done in that bathroom when you’re out in the studio. I decided to stay put and just do what I felt I could, a posture here, a posture there, coming out early if that woozy feeling in my head and that wishy-washy feeling in my stomach got the best of me.

And then, it was done. Over. I’d made it through. And without dying, which I seriously considered as a possibility at one point.

Sometimes, I wish I could keep a notepad by my mat so I could jot down my mind’s million ramblings, right in the moment, throughout class. And perhaps that’s part of why I struggled so tonight—I couldn’t shut myself up. That little self of mine just prattled away, telling me I was uncomfortable, sick to my stomach, achy, emotional, exhausted, anxious, and downright fed up. It told me to quit. Some moments, I did. But, other moments, I rallied what little silence I had left in me, smothered my chatter-box self up, and moved on. Is that body over mind? Self over ego? Stillness over rage? My somewhat-insane side over my totally-insane side?

And what is the lesson learned here? I’m not entirely sure. Maybe it’s all the things I’ve been writing about—that yoga is a practice, meaning some days will be plain awful, and I should focus instead on the big picture, on the self-love and strength and balance I’ve developed. In water polo, I had some practices during which I didn’t make a single goal, I swallowed enough water to fill a fish tank, my coach wouldn’t stop yelling at me, my defender wouldn’t stop pounding me, and my heart just couldn’t give any more. I didn’t have a choice then to return to the pool or not—I had to keep going back, no questions asked, because I was there for people other than myself. That’s called a scholarship, my friends. We fight and fight for them, but what chains they are in the end. 

In yoga, though, I have a choice. And I am there for no one but me. I was sitting upstairs after class, trying to regain my composure, trying not to curl up on the floor and start sobbing. (I could already feel the burn in my eyes, the choking feeling in my throat—the sure sign the tears are about to come.) I kept thinking, “Yes, I have a choice, and I choose to say ‘Enough is enough’ tomorrow and end my misery.” I was tired, disappointed in how close I was to cracking, and seriously thinking about how I’d tell people I’d called it quits after two straight weeks.

Suddenly, a woman sat down next to me and said quietly, “We did it!” I looked over, only to realize it was the woman who’d been on the mat to my left in class. I tried to smile, but my lips were quivering.

“Yeah, I guess we did,” I replied. Then, because I wanted her to know why I’d struggled so in class (although I also know it shouldn’t matter), my pride said to this woman, “I’m doing a 30-day challenge, and today was day 13, and, well, I just might quit at the two-week mark. I don’t know if I can do this.” 

She broke out into a huge grin, and patted my knee, and exclaimed, “Oh, that’s so wonderful! Good for you! Wow, 30 days. How impressive. I did a 30-day challenge myself six months ago. It was awful at times, but I stuck it out. You can, too. You just have to remember, you don’t feel amazing while you’re doing it. You feel like shit, actually.”

I smiled fully at this. How apt, given tonight’s class.

“But afterwards,” she continued, “afterwards, when you take a day or two break, you wake up, and it’s like you’ve been given a new body, and that body is thankful beyond words. And that makes the 30-day hell worth it.”  

She gave me another pat on the knee and a nudge with her elbow and said, “You can do it. You’re strong—I can tell. Just take one day at a time.”

With that final piece of wisdom, satisfied, she got up and went on her way. And so did I, after another minute or two, feeling a little lighter, a little calmer, thinking how perfect everything she just said to me was and how I’d never seen her around the studio and how I’d never even managed a “thank you.”

On my walk home, I realized sometimes loving this yoga practice of mine is hard. In the same way that some days loving myself is hard and loving you is hard. But, loving anything or anyone is one of life’s greatest hardships (and joys, of course). And yet, we constantly seek and crave and give it, passionately and optimistically, even if love has slapped us black and blue too many times to count. We return to it, again and again, palms up, asking for another chance, despite the cracks of experience on our hearts and the war-torn lessons tucked into our pockets. We wear love’s rose-colored glasses even on the cloudiest of days. Which reminds me of one of my favorite quotes by Agnes Smedley (wrote “Daughter of Earth”): “There must be in the heart a faith so faithful that it comes back even after it has been slain.”

Even though I felt absolutely faithless—in myself and in love—at various times today, I know I am, in fact, overrun with faith that I will finish what I’ve started, and that yoga has helped heal past events in my life, and that I am still hopeful, idealistic, open. To yoga, to love, to you.

After all, I’m a lover, not a fighter. And, as Henry Drummond said, “You will find as you look back upon your life that the moments when you have truly lived are the moments when you have done things in the spirit of love.”

Namaste…