This is article two in the Sandbox Meditations series.
Momma Meditation: It turns out that yoga pants are the perfect attire for life after kids, as you are bending, reaching and stretching emotionally, mentally and spiritually in ways that you never thought were humanly possible. The flexibility asked of us during motherhood surpasses anything that will ever be performed on the mat in any yoga class; it’s part art form and part circus act.
“From down dog, place your forearms on the mat. Interlace your fingers. Slowly begin to walk your feet toward your face. Your weight will shift onto your elbows as you lift your feet naturally into sirsasana, also known as headstand pose.”
My yoga teacher’s calm and soothing voice is bumping up against the tension in my body and the hostile environment that I call my mind. I’m attempting to not-so-gracefully maneuver into the headstand on my decade-old, lime-green mat following a rather extended break from yoga after having kids. I participated in prenatal yoga here and there, but the class was just as much talking about baby names, pregnancy discomforts and food cravings as it was about performing the gentle yoga poses. And there were definitely NO headstands.
It doesn’t seem that one should simply be able to walk their feet toward their face. And lifting my feet “naturally” into the air doesn’t feel one bit natural to me. Sort of like being a new mom, well at least my experience of it in the beginning … NOT. VERY. NATURAL.
I extend one, then finally … yes … two legs up into the air. Handstand pose!
But my happiness quickly fades into thoughts like, “I suck at this,” followed by, “I should have stayed home to clean the … (you can accurately insert anything from our house into the blank)” play on repeat in my mind more annoyingly than The Kardashians on E!. There’s a reason our jumping thoughts are often referred to as “Monkey Mind.”
Sirsasana, or headstand pose, is also known to be the “mother” or “father” of yoga poses, which I find to be just perfectly, almost comically fitting, since this pose appears to be the most accurate metaphor of what it’s like to be a parent. Maybe the ancient yogis knew this.
Motherhood feels an awful lot like holding headstand pose … for years, life as we know it is flipped upside down, providing us with a completely new view, a new perspective, and the feeling you might just topple over any second in a complete and total out of control, vulnerable mess.
Motherhood feels an awful lot like holding headstand pose … for years, life as we know it is flipped upside down, providing us with a completely new view, a new perspective, and the feeling you might just topple over any second in a complete and total out of control, vulnerable mess.
As I’m holding the pose, I begin to feel my heartbeat in my head. I’m fairly certain one should not be feeling a heartbeat inside her brain. Different muscles in my body tighten and contract as I attempt to hold my legs up in the air. As they sway from side to side, like two short palm trees during a hurricane, the fear begins to well up inside my chest and take over my mind.
You see, I’m busy creating an elaborate story about what could unfold, picturing myself falling over and taking out three, maybe four, other yogis in a domino effect. As I lay there in a sweaty, angry heap of people, with their limbs flailing about, I would be asked by the yoga teacher to never return to this studio again. As I attempt to sprint out of that yoga class just as fast as my yoga pants legs would carry me, I slip in my own puddle of sweat on the bamboo flooring, knocking over a patchouli candle and burning the entire studio down.
My yoga teacher’s questions bring me back to my upside-down reality: “Can you leannnn into the uncomfortableness of this pose?” she asks. “Can you find ways to soften while staying strong? Where’s the workability in this pose within yourself?”
At first I fight her questions. Lean into this uncomfortableness? Really? Uh, no. Truth be told, I would rather sprint from anything uncomfortable.
Soften while staying strong? Hmmm. Well that’s presenting quite the contradiction, quite the yogi paradox. But what would that feel like? I begin to relax into my strength, not fighting the pose as much both physically and mentally.
Where’s the workability? Ahhh, I begin to realize, it’s in my mind and in my breath. There’s workability with my thoughts, the stories I create, my inner critic. This pose could be challenging, but I can make it 10 times more challenging within my mind. So I begin to soften the thoughts in my head. Quiet them, give them a little room by not overly clinging to them or attaching them. My “I suck at this” thoughts still occur, but don’t have quite the same power as they did just a few minutes ago.
And I began to listen to my racing breath, slowing it down along with all of my racing thoughts. I recalled what I learned in my yoga teacher training, that we can put our bodies into a parasympathetic state by using our breath. When in a sympathetic state, our fight or flight reaction is triggered through stress that is real or perceived.
Our breathing and heart rate increase, and stress hormones flood into our bodies. When this happens on a regular basis, we put our bodies in a state of dis-ease. However, we have a natural way to combat this built into our bodies. Our breath. Meaning we can slow down our breathing and ultimately calm down our bodies and minds. There’s workability there too.
I began counting to four with my inhale, pausing and then counting to four for the exhale.
Although I didn’t have all of the answers to what she was asking, I slowly move beyond the little fear voice in my head and began to see the parallels between the challenges of a yoga pose and the challenges of life, especially within the context of parenting. Something opened up when I let go of my thoughts that were like one giant run-on-sentence. And a moment of clarity set in.
Life gives us a challenge and then asks us to find the workability. Life asks how can we soften yet stay strong during parenthood, especially the uncomfortable parts. There’s the art form and the circus act of motherhood. It seemed that yoga had been preparing me all along for motherhood. And I thought it was only helping with my tight hamstrings. But after two kids, yoga seemed to be one more thing that was simply left behind only to be picked up randomly here or there when life allowed for it.
“Now, slowly and mindfully come out of headstand when you are ready,” the teacher instructed.
Just for the record, I did not topple over. I brought my legs back to the floor and took child’s pose, then felt the subtle sensation of peace root up from deep within, knowing that when things are flipped upside down, it really does provide a whole new perspective of life. If we can allow the scary feelings to be there and still be open to what’s happening around us, we may find the smallest little piece of something to work with even if it’s just our breath.
Maybe this new perspective of life after kids had something to teach me: cultivate your art form (find the workability, the beauty and the lessons) and embrace the circus act (lean into the uncomfortableness, the craziness and the chaos).
Maybe this new perspective of life after kids had something to teach me: cultivate your art form (find the workability, the beauty and the lessons) and embrace the circus act (lean into the uncomfortableness, the craziness and the chaos).
Photo by Dana Wisniewski.
Dana Wisniewski is an author of The Yoga Pants Years , co-owner of Live Heavily Meditated and mother. She lives just outside of Boulder Colorado with her husband and two boys. Dana also does free-lance writing as well as print and web design. Visit her at www.danawisniewski.com/. She has worked extensively in corporate wellness for the past 15 years, and has developed employee wellness programs – specifically mindfulness programs – for Colorado’s Jefferson County Public Schools’ employees and City of Boulder employees.
