I started doing yoga because I wanted to be able to do a press up. I thought that yoga arms could save me from upper body strength embarrassment.
After months of bicep strengthening classes, yoga gave me what I had asked for. I performed my new single press up capability that Christmas to my bemused twin nephews who were polite enough to give me a round of applause. Four year olds are the best!
Until then I thought all ‘yoga’ was the same so I was deeply confused the first time I went to a restorative yoga class. There were no powerful warrior poses or gravity defying crows or scary headstands (which I can’t do anyway because of the slipped discs in my neck).
Instead we were invited to gather blocks and bolsters and blankets and then basically drape ourselves over them for several minutes at a time. I thought it must be a joke. Lying down in different positions for an hour? This is the best thing ever!
I continued going to ‘regular’ classes (those biceps weren’t going to keep impressing 4 year olds by themselves!) but would sneak in a restorative practice almost as a guilty pleasure, as if physical relaxation was something I wasn’t really allowed to do.
In the years since that magnificent first glorified napping session* I’ve experienced some big emotional as well as physical shocks and I’ve turned to ‘lying down’ as a way of providing intensive care for my nervous system.
Lying down and resting hasn’t always come easily to me.
I’ve called myself lazy and tried to force and shame myself back into a more active practice.
I’ve told myself ‘there’s something wrong with me’ for not being able to ‘just get on the mat’. But being mean to myself hasn’t worked very well. Apparently my nervous system doesn’t like being called lazy.
I’m recovering (as I think we all are in our own way) from difficult life stuff
My body wants to lie down
My heart wants to feel cared for by stillness
Right now the yoga that gave me the mighty press up isn’t the yoga my nervous system wants me to do.
I’ve learnt that I don’t need restorative yoga as ‘just relaxation’ but as time to be with the ‘me’ who has survived difficult things, the ‘me’ who sometimes wakes up tired, as well as the ‘me’ who secretly still wants to be Diana Ross.
It’s also for the ‘me’ who wants to share this slow, gentle practice with a little community in this new place that I’m starting to call home.
If restorative yoga sounds like it might be for you, please join me on Tuesday 22nd September or get in touch to ask any questions or talk about your yoga needs
If it’s right for you, I look forward to welcoming you soon!
*restorative yoga is much more than lying down and has a history that I’m still learning about
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