Day 57 Kicking Down the Door
Another strong day. Hm. I’m beginning to wonder if there’s really something in Bikram’s multiples-of-thirty concept. I’ve hung in there for nearly 60 days now, and it seems I’m suddenly reaching a new level.
I’m not the only one noticing, either.
“Your practice is really changing,” commented Randee as I made my way to the door after class today. I didn’t want to interrupt an instructors’ pow-wow, but then Angela and Anthea added a few words of encouragement to me as well.
I responded that I’d had several strong days in a row now, and that I seem to be pushing through into new areas with some of my postures.
For instance, in Camel pose, I can look back now far enough to see the floor. When I inhale, I can feel my chest rising into the backbend, and instead of just leaning back, I feel myself doing an inversion, like an upside-down U. Something inside my back is unlocking.
“It’s like I’m breaking through some kind of barrier,” I said, hoping I didn’t sound like a total rube.
“Breaking through?” Randee answered. “You’re kicking down the door.”
I don’t know about that – but I do know that there’s nothing like a kind word from those farther ahead of me on any path, to help me keep going forward.
Actually, it made my day!
Day 56 Great News – I’m Not Pregnant
But it certainly explains the blueberry-sized pimple percolating unicorn-like on my forehead. It’s an evil joke that puts chin hairs and zits on the same face, but I know of many women around my age that are dealing with this. Hot flashes interspersed with menstrual cramps. Mood swings and memory lapses, (which is actually a good combination when you think about it.) Insomnia, cravings, and get-the-hell-out-of-my-way rage. PMS on crack, that’s perimenopause, except it’s less predictable and it seems to last longer.
Yay, right?
I’ve been in it for the last three or four years and, between herbal supplements and bioidentical hormone replacement cream, I’m dealing. Sometimes better than others, but I haven’t killed anyone, so that’s something.
I always told my girls that the emotional ups and downs that sometimes – but not necessarily – accompany the menstrual cycle are not a “bad” thing, but rather a tool we can use to identify something that perhaps we’re unhappy about, but that three weeks out of four, we’re pretending is just fine. My daughters have all inherited the “nice” gene, I’m afraid, so I always felt this was information they needed.
We try so hard, us nice girls, to deal, to make things good, fine, okay, great, happy, smooth, peaceful, that we sometimes roll right over those aspects of our life that aren’t quite as they should be. We don’t ask for help when we need it; we don’t say when we’re disappointed; we agree to things when we really want to argue. PMS rips off the veil, forcing us to see what’s real, instead of what’s easiest.
So, yeah, now that I seem to be in a permanent veil-lifted stage, the lessons I taught my girls are coming home to roost. I might look a little more selfish, crabby, argumentative, and a little less compliant and obliging. What I am definitely more of these days is honest. And I think that’s the real task of mid-life.
It comes circling back to that central question: what do I really want? For myself, not anyone else, just me?
Because as my primarily-mother years wane, I’m back to me, myself, a woman I need to get to know all over again.
Day 55 Monkey-Mind Chatter
Most of the usual crowd had other things to do on a sunny Saturday, so there was only eight of us in the hot room this afternoon. I’d worked in the yard, gone grocery shopping, took my daughter out, and ended up being very nearly late for class. Which wouldn’t be good, because then I’d have to make it up somewhere in a double, and I’m NOT going to do that again.
But despite my rushed start, I found myself having another strong day. That’s, like, several days this week. Whoo-hoo! And although I haven’t been doing it deliberately, it seems that as my physical abilities improve, my practice is becoming more… meditative, maybe.
Although I still want to execute a perfect Standing-Head-to-Knee one day, I wonder if quieting the monkey-mind chatter, moving inward and focusing on the breath isn’t an even more important exercise.
And at least as difficult.