12/08/2023
For ten years I did yoga just as I did everything else: like a good girl. I stretched my body into the positions I was told. For a few years I got up at five every morning to have time for meditation and yoga before rushing of to work. It was exhausting. I was exhausted. But I kept at it, I kept being a good girl, until there was nothing else left; nothing but exhaustion.
Half a year later I participated in a weekend workshop in the Rosenmethod of movements. I realised that the yoga had indeed made me flexible, but it certainly had not made my body any softer. I had still approached it as a task that needed to be conquered.
This is not to say yoga is bad for you, this is to say that it's hard. It's hard, and it takes time, to change old patterns and programming. Even if you start with something new you're likely to do it in just the same way as everything else. For me it took exhaustion, that is not a way I recommend.
There are thousands of techniques to help you break those patterns, but none that will help everybody. Yoga can most definitely be one of them.
But instead of looking for just another technique (another task to conquer) my best suggestion would be curiosity. Curiosity about your body and curiosity about your mind.
How does the sole of your left foot feel in this moment? What thoughts about yourself are you entertaining right now?
