This morning I decided to shake the dust off of my pass book and take a yoga class. While I took yoga at my gym, and years of Bikram, I've never really done much at any yoga studios or centers. But since money is short, and I'm no longer part of a gym, it was to the pass book centers I went.

My mind has not been the nicest place to be these past 24 hours. Sundry things have made it so - or, I should more accurately say, spurred it on as I'm the only person who makes me be anything, really - and despite trying to calm myself down, nothing seemed to work. I woke up angry, and I just didn't want to be angry anymore. I have a hard time letting go. I am, as my shrink has alluded to, a control freak. And when my control is challenged I have a difficult time responding in a calm, level-headed fashion. Worse yet, I almost refuse to let reason enter the picture, and subsequently take hold of whatever it is that's bothering me as though I were a rabid dog. It's almost as if I want to remain in a state of crazy, hot pissed off.

I am trying to stop all that. Or at least reduce the amount of time I spend stewing. I don't want to be so angry when things don't go my way. I don't want to be so mad when my feelings get hurt. It's not that I'm necessarily trying to suppress my feelings, but rather take it all down a notch. All that ends up happening in the end is that I end up feeling ashamed, more than anything else.

So at 8:23 a.m., sitting at this computer, I realized that I was embarking on yet another few hours of "I am so right and I am so mad so someone justify these feelings now, dammit," I decided that I might be better served to find a yoga class and calm the heck down.

So by 8:45 a.m. I was at the studio, signing the papers and getting ready. It's a small space, and the class is tiny - nine people. It was a Hatha yoga class, and while I wasn't worried about how I would do, I knew I'd stumble a bit. I tried to remember that important lesson - to let myself stumble, that it would be OK to let go and not know it all. Somehow it seemed to help with the greater struggle before me, the one where I was so angry and hurt but knew I had to be done with it.

I say that yoga for me is a lot like golf is for golfers: when I'm practicing yoga, I'm not thinking of anything else. And like golf, you can never really be perfect at it. Everyone, for the most part, is on equal footing as far as this concept is concerned. You're each constantly working on something, and the entire activity is dependent upon your mind and body being focused, working together in tandem. There is little room for distraction. And in truth, the lessons you seem to take with you occur after the fact, and aren't ones you're particular conscious of during.

Also, everyone needs something that takes them out of themselves for a couple of hours. Forcing yourself to forget the niggling details of life tends to unclutter us just long enough to gain perspective.

I am not good at inversions. They make me nervous. Again, it's a control thing. But it's funny when you consider my childhood, one in which I spent hours turning flips and cartwheels and somersaults and headstands. As a kid, I'd watch TV, upside down, in the living room, in a headstand.

So we prepped for handstand, or the proper name if you care, "Adho Mukha Vrksasana," and I told myself that I would just try. No matter what, I would try. We did a position before launching into handstand that had us position our feet against the wall, in a handstand position, forming a 90-degree angle. I managed that without problem, but my shoulders certainly felt weak and sore. As our teacher went into discussing handstand, she said this:

"It's the little things that scare us. Rather than just going forward and doing it, we take these little steps that end up doing us more harm than good."

In some ways, she clearly meant this literally as you're more likely to successfully get yourself into the handstand position by sweeping your leg on up and over. But it's scary. It seems safer to scuttle your feet on up and hop around and maybe then get your feet up and over your head onto the wall. But it doesn't work that way. You just have to get in there and do it.

It's stupid, perhaps, and a whopping yoga cliche, definitely, but I smiled as soon as she said this and let everything go. I probably had one of the most relaxing and true Savasanas I have ever had.

Plus I managed to hoist my legs up and over. Only once, and it took me a while, but I did it.

Sometimes I have to remember to just let go when it comes to nearly every aspect of my life. I'm not alone in this. Sometimes it feels safer to hold on to it all, whatever it is, when there is usually greater reward in the release. Overeating is sometimes like this, as is drinking, sleeping ... an excess of any vice is usually the result of us clinging onto some feeling rather than just putting down the Cheetos (if you're me) and getting on with it. It takes a certain amount of courage to sit with not only the original feeling, but the result of your reaction to it - empty potato chip bags strewn about or a messy house or missed appointments because you never left the house ... the list goes on, I suppose.

For me, today, not only am I dealing with feeling hurt, but also the results of my reaction to that hurt, which found me snapping at someone I love, and closing myself off as quickly as I could. I'm better prepared to sort through it all now, but it's still there and I still have to deal with all of it and oy.

It sucks.

It's worth pointing out that the woman who taught my yoga class this morning is the very same woman who authored the "Wear Sunscreen" column ten years ago, which was mistaken to be a M.I.T. commencement speech give by author Kurt Vonnegut, and to which Baz Luhrmann set to music and released as an album. I'm not totally surprised she teaches yoga. Or that I was inspired by her today.

(Here's the column if you're interested. I remember when it came out. Yeesh. I was still in school.)

For now, I'm going to take my dog to the dog beach and spend some time outside. She likes it there and goes nutty for it. I could use the fresh air and some more perspective. Plus, tomorrow I have another tough workout in front of me before I take it easy in preparation for next Sunday's 10K.

Posted by Erin at 12:17 PM | filed under: Inspiration