Some days I find myself in need of more clarity and peace than others. Today was one of those days. I forewarned one of my favourite teachers (the QUEEN of MYM) that I was in need of her wisdom and that there was a 10/10 chance that I'd cry in her class this afternoon. She told me to come anyway and flow it out/cry if I needed to because it'd be as good as a release as sweating it out. So I did. And I stayed for a beautiful Yin class afterwards.
The second I lay in savasana, I just became overwhelmed with so many emotions. I was angry, sad, relieved, uncertain, confused...pretty much every emotion under the sun - minus joy; that was missing. I didn't know what to feel, which emotion to pay attention to, where my head was at, where my heart was at - I just felt flustered. As class went on, I began to flow the fluster away. I began concentrating on my movements and paid particular attention to how my body was responding to my emotions. I found myself involuntarily shaking in poses I normally have significant stability in and found myself just...off-balance throughout the class. I've spoken a bit about the anthropological concept of 'embodiment' in Field Notes, but this was quite literally the first time I paid personal attention to the phenomenon of how my body literally embodied my emotions. In listening to my body throughout my practice, I figured out which emotion was the driving force behind my instability: uncertainty. The feeling of uncertainty overwhelmed the majority of my flow class, but instead of trying to shake it off, I leaned into it. Particularly in pigeon.
I have a love/hate relationship with pigeon pose. It's one of those poses that can feel fantastic one day and then feel completely painful the next; or, it can feel amazing on one side (usually my right side) and then hurt like hell on the other side. More than that, it's a pose that brings up all the emotions for me, especially when I transition to sleeping pigeon. All of my thoughts rush to my head and honestly, overwhelm me - so much so, that I have to keep my arms open and rest my head on my mat because if I try to rest my head on my closed arms, I feel trapped with my anxiety. That aside, in pigeon today the beautiful instructor came to give me some hands on adjustment (something I love because it always feels so damn good). She deepened my sleeping pigeon and in doing so, I was met with extreme discomfort. Initially, I tried to resist it; it felt so uncomfortable that I almost asked her to ease off the adjustment. But yoga (and life) is all about finding comfort in the discomfort - resisting the discomfort only makes things so much more worse than it need be. Yes, you want to get out of said discomfort ASAP, but resisting it prohibits growth instead of enabling it. So, I took the deepest breaths I took all class and allowed myself to feel the uncomfortableness, to really experience and stay with the discomfort, and in doing so I... just started uncontrollably bawling - like so much so that I felt real bad for the teacher who is literally the kindest human in the universe because I'm like hundo p sure she was all "wtf". BUT, in releasing my tears, I simultaneously released my resistance and found myself naturally softening (in both the pose and in tears), and arrived at a point in the posture where I felt comfortable. This exact sequence of events was then repeated on my left side, which hurt a lot more because for some reason I'm super tight on that side. BTW, the teacher is a literal angel for coming back to adjust me on my other side, even though I exemplified the literal definition of a 'hot mess' when she came to adjust me on my right side.
ANYWAYS, the message I'm trying to convey here is that those moments of discomfort are always temporary. If we try to resist them, then we only heighten the pain and end up hurting ourselves. Moreover, experiencing these moments of discomfort allows us to actively participate and experience the moments of our personal growth. Growth, like pigeon pose, is uncomfortable. It hurts. It feels uncertain. And it's awkward. But when you stop resisting the discomfort and breathe deeply throughout pose, you start to trust yourself. You begin to trust that "this too shall pass" (so corny, but bear with me) and eventually, you find softening, and eventually, comfort.
These feelings of uncertainty will eventually subside and manifest into something that more closely resembles joy. I just need to sit with it, stop resisting it, stop forcing gratitude - because that will come in time - and allow myself to uncomfortably feel and experience the uncertainty. I need to embrace the discomfort because in doing so, I know that I'm embracing growth. With deep breaths in times of turmoil or mental distress or whatever tf, I'll naturally arrive at a place where I can finally soften and re-discover a comfort that I created for myself.
S/O to the QUEEN of MYM for dealing with my mental breakdown in tonight's flow class - you're the real MVP and if I'm grateful for anything today, it's you❤️
Namaste everyone!