Shooting at the Walls of Heartache

My sister dragged me to a yoga & meditation class. When I say "dragged", what I really mean is she called and asked if I'd like to go and although I was feeling whiny and sick with a cold, I responded "Yippee! Yippee! Yes! Yes! Yes! I'll be waiting outside!!"

I've done meditation training before and I love it. For that one week I was Buddhist, I felt truly lovely and peaceful so I was pretty excited to take this class.

So we get there and set up our mats, with Sissy strangely positioning us at the front of the class, although I am very clearly a back of the class type.

The instructor is a gentle voiced young woman who immediately makes me feel good just by speaking. Don't you just love people whose voices alone have the power to soothe?

As we start doing the initial meditation, I'm trying hard to stop thinking, but my nose is running and I really need to have a hacking cough. Do you know how hard it is to hold back a cough? It ain't easy people. Eventually I have to root through my bag for a tissue because snot dripping onto my yoga mat would send me over the edge, but I manage to stifle the cough.

I'm so zen.

As the yoga begins, I'm thinking I could really be down with exercise that allows me to lie down and gives me a pillow right now. But the instructor takes us into the Warrior Pose by walking our right foot up inside our right hand. Excuse me, our what now? 

Eventually it looks like this:

Once I manage to stand up and not tip over, I'm all check me out!! I AM A WARRIOR! And then that song by Patty Smyth invades my brain and I can't stop singing it - trying very hard not to let my lips move or do the finger gun shots so as not to appear mentally ill..."Shooting at the walls of heartache - BANG! BANG! - I am a warrior!" If you were born in the 90's and have no idea what I'm talking about, shame on you. And also, google it. I double dog dare you not to sing it at your next yoga class.

Okay, back to mindful yoga.

Ohm.

I'm really digging it. I'm feeling stronger and more peaceful already. I'm buying a membership people. I'm gonna become a master Yogi.

Then I sneezed so loud my stomach hurt, knocked over my water bottle, and flooded my mat and the floor around me. Sissy looks over at me and smiles a knowing smile as I'm sopping up water with my raggedy balled up tissue trying to be discreet. Yup, there's the sister she knows.

At the end we did this really wonderful visualization called The Bowl of Loving Kindness (if you're into this kind of thing, it was from a book called The Healing Circle, by doctors and cancer survivors Rob Rutledge and Timothy Walker, and while the book was written to help you heal after a cancer diagnosis, I'm sure that it could be helpful in many difficult situations). I really wish I had known of it when my mother was sick, but better late than never.

So, back to class - - I close my eyes, I'm feeling very relaxed, and she tells us to imagine that we are holding a bowl in our hands...any kind of bowl...the yoga instructor suggested several types of bowls and then I became very indecisive...and I started thinking about what snacks to put in my bowl...but I finally settled on a colorful glass bowl and I filled that bowl with all of the yucky stuff I was feeling...and my narsty tissues...and then I radiated some loving kindness into my beautiful bowl and it all swirled together with the crap...I filled that bad boy up with loving kindness and in the end I let that positive, healing energy flow right back into my heart...and let me tell you, some may find it hokey, but I felt incredible.

I hope you'll try the visualization and I even more deeply hope that it makes you feel full of loving kindness, which spills over to all the people you connect with today. Wouldn't that be perfect?