UPDog: And Bend, And Reach...

So, after yoga class today, I asked if anyone had any big plans for the new year.  Several responses prompted thought, but one is making its way into blogdom today. Kay said that this year she is going to work on balance and flexibility.  Now, I know full well that she was speaking of her "on the mat" practice, but indulge me, yet again, I would like to extend that to our everyday lives. Sometime last year I put up a post about balance in our lives. Balancing Act drew rave reviews. The critics gave it 3 thumbs up, and audiences went wild. I am a legend in my own mind...

That being hyperbolized, I will focus the remainder of this entry on flexibility.  I am not one to get overly excited about change.  I don't trust it, I rarely accept it, and I certainly do not condone it. That's right, you heard me! I simply want plain old ordinary stability.  I want the dishes where they have always been (even if it is inconvenient I would rather live with it than have it be different), and I will wear my favorite pajamas until they are see-through and Hunky Hubby rips them from my hands and hides them in his rag pile in the garage!  Is this sounding like an anti-flexibility rant to you?  Ya, well there is something to be said for learning from others' mistakes.  Earlier today a friend was having trouble with all the complicated features on her new CD player.  She said, "I would rather have the old one back, it had lots of problems, but at least I knew how to deal with them!"  A chick after my own heart. I want to be the girl who just goes with the flow, rolls with the punches, and like Mary Richards is willing to pack everything I own into a '69 mustang and head to Minneapolis in pursuit of my dreams!  Ya, not gonna happen. I like spontaneity, but only as long as it is well planned. Anybody but me wondering when the flexibility tutorial is coming?  That is just it!  I am not particularly flexible. I thought I could sit and write a moving commentary about the ebb and flow of our existence, punctuated with inspirational anecdotes from my own life, but I just don't have many.  I do remember the first time I ever went Bodyboarding.  My friend told me that if you cannot catch the wave that is coming up behind you, you have to just drop under water and let the wave carry you back to the beach.  If you try to fight the wave, it will win. Eventually I missed one, and I those few moments under the water, rolling end over end along the bottom of the ocean were terrifying.  But, at that moment, I was not in control and I had to let go and let nature take its course, or suffer the consequences of trying to fight it.  Such is life.  We often dwell on the things that could have been.  Perhaps things are not what we had planned.  But for now, it simply is. Does that mean we do not try to better ourselves or our circumstances? Of course not.  But sometimes our our failure to accept what already is, keeps things and us from changing, growing & improving. If we tighten a muscle while we are trying to stretch it, we limit the amount of improvement we can make in our flexibility. It is in releasing the tension that we make the greatest progress.  I practice this with my body, I guess I just need to make that mind/body/spirit/life connection.  Jump in with both feet.  Throw my hat in the air. Dance in the street. And--even though the old ones were just fine, and the shirt covered the hole in the rather unmentionable spot, and they probably only have a tiny bit of grease from the rag pile, and could still be worn for a few more months--I am wearing the new pajamas...

Quote of the day:"Take care of the present, and the future will take care of itself."

--Ramana Maharshi yoga master