I recently celebrated my 40th birthday (YAY!)
In all honesty, the excitement for birthdays has kinda gone away until I had kiddos and now it’s super fun again so go ahead and imagine me in a party hat.
Over the past weekend, while practicing with a dear sweet friend and fellow yoga teacher, Elizabeth Ogle, we were both working on our “nemesis poses” really not nemesis, but you know, the poses that are so dang hard that it seems like they are never gonna be achievable?
One of us got exasperated, can’t remember who, and we started talking about how long we’d been working on our respective poses, and then I had this thought…
When we say stuff like,
“How long will it take me to get this pose?
have you ever thought about how relative that time is that you’ve been working on the pose compared to your whole life?
This is about to get pretty geeky, so bear with me.
Einstein has this big revolutionary Physics theory on the Relativity of Time. (this link explains it, I think, rather well) Now, I’m not a physicist, in fact, it’s been probably closer to 25 years than I’d like to think since I’ve actually had ANY formal physics education. However, the relativity of time has always sorta stuck with me as profound and meaningful, especially as my life seems to be moving at a faster and faster clip.
I started practicing yoga when I was 30. That was 10 years ago (YIKES!) I have officially been practicing yoga 25% of my life. For 2 years of that time, I was pregnant or basically a cow nursing 24/7 so my practice didn’t get the same attention it does now that I have been replaced as the main food source for my children. However, taking those two years out really messes with my easy math, so we are gonna leave them in there for the sake of this argument.
Remember that math. 10% of my life has included yoga.
During our practice, we got a little frustrated because neither of us had met our asana goals, you know, arbitrary dates we have in mind for reaching the pose we thought we should have nailed by now.
Dude, talk about disappointment!
It dawned on me that although I had been working on Karandavasana (my “pose goal” for about a year, that is 10% of my 25% of my life. That is .025, or 2.5% of my life.
I felt like I had been working on this pose “FOREVER” when really, it is less than 3% of my life in total or just 10% of my entire time practicing…ever.
Once we started thinking about the math and how, in the grand scheme of things, it really hasn’t been that much time, it really made us practice a bit more ahimsa, non-violence and it helped us practice a bit of non-attachment or Aparigraha. (another yogic concept we will dive into in the Thrive Yoga and Wellness Vlog, so be sure to subscribe to our Youtube Channel!)
As you strive to your asana (or posture) goals, I want to encourage you,
Don’t Give Up!
Keep practicing. You can do the practice, the stuff like individual postures–that will come in its own sweet time. It’s the practice, not the pose that makes the difference.
What pose are you struggling with right now? Do you need to practice a bit more Ahimsa towards yourself in some area? Go ahead and leave me a comment below. If it’s a posture, I will endeavor to create a video for you on our Youtube Channel with pointers (IF I know any), and if it’s something else, Let me know and I’ll believe with you!