Around 1997 I began to practise yoga.
I had been teaching for seven years or so and often found the work quite stressful and exhausting. Over the years, many different things were recommended and tried by me to alleviate or reduce the stress. Yoga and meditation have been the two things that have stayed with me, on and off, for over 25 years. Because they work.
Yoga relaxes my body, improving flexibity and stabilty. Meditation does the same thing for my mind.
I first discovered Stephen Cope via one of his CD’s, Yoga for Emotional Flow (2003). At this point in my life, I was driving medium distances fairly regularly and Cope’s soothing voice became my driving partner for a number of years. He helped me get through some difficult years.
I was delighted to discover he had also written books and found the Yoga and the Quest for the True Self (2000) in November 2005 at my local bookshop. It was thanks to Cope that I learnt why some yoga poses resonated more strongly than others. Why, in fact, some poses felt almost transcendent – so powerful, full of emotion and the possibility of healing.
Like friendships, it seems that yoga poses can also have a reason, a season or lifetime purpose.
Curiously I have underlined nothing in this book, even though it still looms large in my emotional memory. But near the back of the book is a small dog-eared page for the section titled ‘The Dilemma of the Abandoned Child’. Like the case study that is explored across the next few pages, I was ‘emotionally left‘ by me mother before I was ready due to depression.
Rereading these pages reminded me why this book has stayed with through the last three moves. This section struck a chord at the time and helped me to understand why I am the way I am, that is someone who is more or less always ill at ease.
Though the postures remain the same, her experience of them was different every time….her body would speak more clearly as she stopped trying to dominate it…,she decided is was OK to let herself enjoy the postures she felt drawn to – the forward bends, the child pose, all of the postures in which she got to hold herself.
FYI: the child pose, plus the uttanasana poses with folded arms & clasped hands are the poses that bring me the most peace, relaxation and solace. The two areas I work on most with yoga are grounding (warrior’s pose, tree pose – vrksansana) and my core (cat pose – marjariasana, downward facing dog – adho mukha svanasana and extended side angle pose – utthita parsvakonasana).
It turns out that a book that I thought was transformative, was simply one section within a chapter that was transformative. A book that was with me for a reason.
The reason it struck such a chord may not necessarily be done and dusted, but it is a work in progress, and now that I have recorded the main points here, I no longer need to keep the whole book with me.
I picked up The Wisdom of Yoga: A Seeker’s Guide to Extraordinary Living (2007) a few years later on the strength of my feelings towards the earlier book. It didn’t have the same impact though – I only read half the book (the bookmark was still inside pp 120-121) – my time with Cope was over, but I’ve only just come to see that now.
Thank you for showing me that practising yoga and meditation is much more than exercise and fitness, that it can also lead to healing, personal growth and well-being.
(This) Authentic Life 