Getting back to my mat

After a 1.5 month hiatus from my asana practice & having moved to a new state and sort of settled down, I felt my mat calling me back and yet there was hesitation to answer that call.

Despite being a teacher, I'm first a student and practitioner. Yoga teachers go through the ups and downs of the practice journey just like any other practitioner. I'm not going to pretend that I have it easy, I only teach from what I have experienced. We may all take a break for various reasons. In my previous blog post I wrote about why I took a break & how it made me feel to actually give myself a break. Here, I talk about what it felt like to get back to my practice.

After this break, I felt being subject to a lot of inertia to get back to my asana practice; mostly stemming from feelings of self-doubt and guilt that were clouding my mind and dulling my inner fire of motivation and enthusiasm. The anxiety from having undergone a big change in my life was creeping up on me and I knew that if I let it control me, it would put out the fire of my desire to practice.

“I loved the feeling of practicing & I need to start again”, is what I would think to myself. But this thought was quickly overshadowed by “Oh! Where do I begin? I’m too stiff, I haven’t settled down fully, maybe I’ll start next week.” Soon ‘Next week’ arrived, the inertia remained & I didn’t feel good about it.

This is when I turned to some of the teachings in the sutras that I learned from my teacher, Gururaja Anemajal. The one that really stood out for me at this point was – Yoga Sutra 1.14 that talks about the foundations of Abhyasa or practice –

Y.S 1.14: Sa tu dīrgha kāla nairantarya satkārā sevito dṛḍhabhūmiḥ

Practice becomes firmly grounded by being continued for a long time with reverence, without interruption.

To be specific, satkārā (satkārā – reverence/faith/ devotion) is what was in bold for me when I visualized this sutra written as a sentence in the pages of my mind.

After years of practice, I knew my faith in the practice remained. The fact that I was disturbed about not being on my mat, made me realize that I still had the love & reverence for the practice. Like a mother who worries when her child doesn’t return home, I worried that I would not get back to where I left off.

You cannot light a fire by yourself.

If you let the fire of your practice die out then, re-igniting it is going to take more time & effort than just fanning the flames.

During my break, I clung on to my asana practice vicariously - I kept in touch with my sangha / yoga buddies, I watched videos of practitioners & teachers who I was inspired by and, I listened to podcasts whenever I was on the go or doing chores. This way, I did not let the fire within me die out. Now, all I needed was a little help to fan the flames.

My teachers have always played an instrumental role in helping me cope with the ups and downs in my asana practice journey. So, I re-connected with my teacher & we spoke at length about what I was going through. Before I took this break I was practicing for 2.5 hours - full primary and intermediate up to Kapotasana. A long break meant I needed to be eased into the practice to get back to where I left off. He put me on a 3 week plan and all I had to do was not miss a single day.

I put my complete faith in my teacher; I showed up on my mat with faith & devotion irrespective of how I was feeling. It wasn’t easy & on most days I cried after backbends or I would feel angry and easily triggered after practice. On some days, the inertia was in my mind & on others it was in my muscles; I felt lazy, guilty & stiff but I did what I had to do and went through the discomfort.

Slowly I began to realize the familiarity of the confrontational nature of the practice – a mirror into my deepest darkest feelings, a place where I did not have to pretend. I had gone through a big change in my life, I was in a new place, an unfamiliar headspace & yet this practice made me feel like I was coming back home. I was coming back home to myself. My practice time would arrive & it was like my body was taking me towards my mat and doing the thing no matter what my mind was telling me.

I felt validated by my own self that the discipline was ingrained deep within my muscles & bones.

So the next time you have to take a break, just remember that absence can make the heart grow fonder & it’s ok to step away sometimes.

Motivation passes but discipline stays.

In my next blog I will be sharing a few tips on how to ease yourself back into your practice. If you enjoyed this read, then give it a thumbs up and pass it on with whoever might relate. Hit Subscribe & stay tuned for the next one!