Why Can't I Just Do Yoga?

As I packed up my yoga mat, towels, water, and gumption to go to yoga the other day, I thought back to a conversation I had last year with my daughter, Megan. She had taken time off from dancing pre-professionally to concentrate on her demanding senior schedule, while opting to get a part-time job instead. Although she still danced, it no longer was an everyday commitment. One Saturday morning I asked her if she wanted to go to the gym with me? Her answer, " No, I don't really want to go. I feel like the elliptical machine is bulking up my thighs." According to Megan, every form of exercise except gyro tonics, Pilate's and dance had the propensity to add muscle to her dancer's legs (which incidentally, are really pretty). I immediately felt annoyed because we had bought her a gym membership to help her stay in shape without all the dancing she had grown so accustomed to doing. My ever well intended response,"Well, don't you think you should go to the gym to exercise?" She looked at me with those doe-like eyes of hers (uniquely innocent for an eighteen year old) and asked, "Why can't I just dance?" I stammered..."Well, you only dance three times a week- if you're lucky now." She told me she realized that and stared backed at me with just a hint of annoyance and asked me again, "Why can't I just dance?"

I felt my cheeks heat up and mother's heart drop, only to realize yet again, this was a teaching moment and I was the one being guided by my daughter. "Why can't she just dance?", I asked myself. The answers that immediately surfaced: It's not real exercise ( immediately followed by, well.. actually it is). Because she needs to do something else besides dance (and why exactly is that?). After a few moments of this heady self banter, I realized how ridiculous I sounded to myself ( and probably to Megan). I'm seasoned enough to know that when I find myself in those types of parental predicaments- it's usually about me ( and my unresolved Hang -Ups). I knew almost immediately this was indeed the case, as my mind panned my teen age years. I was never an avid exerciser as a youth. I gained weight when I blossomed at fifteen and have had a sluggish metabolism ever since. I always had to really work if I wanted to keep my weight in check. I never found a form of exercise that I liked (never mind loved the way that my daughter had with dance). What would it be like to completely enjoy something and have it count as exercise? The things I loved in high school weren't terribly physical; (singing, acting, dating and writing) they didn't count. Back to Megan, I thought (This was definitely more about me and less about her- Crap!). "Yes, you can just dance", I said in contrition and headed out the door to "take it out on" the stair machine.

As I stepped and stepped that morning, (a mindless, repetitive act that usually lends itself to what I have come to know as my Alpha moments) I thought about why exercise needed to be this incredibly awful and arduous task in my life? Wasn't there anything I liked doing that was remotely linked to fitness? Of course there were a few things, (yoga and walking the beach: the standouts) but what I realized was that in my mind they somehow didn't really count. I downplayed them because they didn't seem quite hard enough. But, despite how ridiculously skewed my thinking was, I realized they did indeed count and I enjoyed them both! For my daughter, dancing was and is an appetite, a joy. She wanted out of all other forced forms of exercise to do it. I couldn't appreciate that. I decided then  I needed some of Megan's enthusiasm and less muddling through for my workouts. Because truth be known, I didn't do enough exercising because I didn't find it satisfying. I am a passionate type; when I love something, I want out of whatever I am doing to do it. I knew that day, that those stairs were not it and I had to find that perfect pairing of physical activity and pleasure for myself.

I began doing less gym, more walking in natural settings ( the ultimate is usually the beach) and yoga. I found that Bikram yoga accommodates best my need to do something I love and something challenging. At very forty something, habits and mindsets are deeply etched and I choose carefully how and what I spend energy on changing. It's enough that I've found something I love doing, have some natural facility for, (despite the extra weight I'm carrying) that I also deem challenging enough both physically and mentally. Oddly, I hunger for challenge in my forties the way I craved frozen pink lemonade out of the Minute Maid can as an expectant mother in my twenties. I still love walking the beach, but it somehow feels too decadent to count as a real workout. Walking (for me) is more of an emotional/spiritual mood enhancer with some physical benefits. Maybe in another ten to fifteen years I may need to change to a gentler yoga practice and lots of walking, but for now I'm content to have found my sweet spot.

I think Kabir summed it up nicely for me, "Be strong then, and enter into your own body; there you have a solid place for your feet." I long to be rooted in my own body and soul. I stretch, I bend; I reach, risking my own limitations and significance in the cradle of the heated yoga room. My pride melts away as quickly as my makeup in that triple digit heat with forty percent humidity. I enjoy what yogis call Presence or Being- that quality of awareness not dependent on my external circumstances, my body type, my personality, or my activities, but rather what simply is: the part of me that is present even when my body and mind have temporarily died from duty and drudgery; even the pleasures of my daily living. Savasana (Corpse Pose) is my temporary nirvana. My passions and purpose are reignited by coming to class and striking twenty six postures against the heat of the room. With the Savasanas my body, mind, and spirit are reintegrated, creating a sense of wholeness within me. I love yoga. Yes, I do!

 Can I just do yoga? Most days I tell myself I can. There are on occasion nights I am seduced back into the gym by my well meaning husband who runs ( training for half and full marathons) to stay in shape. I go. I don't love it, but it's nice to sometimes just be with him doing something good for us. I feel much differently about it than I do my yoga practice; I am honest about that now. My daughter, my teacher, and sometimes my window to myself, taught me something that morning. It was a mid-life moment to evaluate why I do what I do, having extended itself beyond my rigid thinking about exercise. Life shouldn't just be about showing up, hating every stitch, and plowing through anyway. Over time this kind of living numbs the senses and robs us of spirit. There is great happiness in doing what I love; I deny myself that right far too often. If I can do yoga, then I can write, sing, dance, play, be still and do nothing...the possibilities are endless. And Megan, My Love, (if you are reading this post) I hope you will forever question even well intended insanity and dance- always dance. I will just do yoga.