The Yoga Release

I went to Tahara’s wonderful Thanksgiving class, with 30 other students and I felt something I haven’t felt for a long time in yoga. It’s not uncommon actually, and it’s a great experience. I wasn’t sad, but I cried through her entire class. I even had to motion to her to please bring me a towel… not for the sweat, but for the tears. I started crying right from the start. I was kind of surprised by it. I wasn’t expecting it at all. And then I found myself crying all the way through, and I kept going all the way through savasana. Have you ever done that? I’d love to hear about it.

Years ago I was on a yoga retreat in Mexico and I bawled through the whole class there too. I’ll admit, looking out at the jungle and ocean when you’re in tree pose can help you get overwhelmed. But this was really a lot of TEARS…. and it lasted for over an hour. I just cried…like I mean, I bawled. My teacher, Eric, kept walking by and he’d look at me and I’d whisper “I don’t know what going on” and smile, and sometimes laugh through the tears. But those tears kept coming. Afterward when we were eating he said “You apparently really needed to release something!” I guess I did… I felt great afterward. I felt new. I still remember it many years later.

On Thanksgiving Day, when it happened, I again felt great afterward. If you come to my classes, you probably know things about my life. I share personal stuff… probably too much, so some of you know I’ve been walking through a storm… same as all of us sometimes do. The pendulum always swings both ways in life. The past two years have been two of the most difficult I’ve had so far. Kind of like a bomb went off in my world. It happened in April of 2023, and the mess it made has taken me a long time to clean up. People kept saying “I don’t know how you’re doing this.” I used a lot of “is that so” and “this too shall pass”… things I learned from Eric on that Mexico retreat, and all my yoga trainings. Like a buffalo, I headed straight forward, through the storm, head down, trudging through, one step at a time. I feel like I’m on the other side of the storm, making my way back out now. Don’t get me wrong, the past year has also given me some of my best days ever. My son graduated from high school and move off to college. I got married on August 8th to Bob, my best friend, who has been like a tether, keeping me from losing it. Our kids were with us, in Tulum, Mexico. (Apparently, I’m a fan of Mexico.) It was lovely… literally. Full of love. By far one of the best weeks of my whole life.

Speaking of Bob, the other day he said to me, “Can you come over here and help me hang this TV?” I was making dinner and I jokingly said “I’ll come over there if you can name one thing you love about me, and it has to be something I’ve never heard you say yet.” He was like “Oh come on!” He secretly likes when I do that though… I just know it. I stood with my arms crossed, tapping my foot, smiling. He said “Ok! Fine. I have one… You’re resilient.” I was like “Huh?” and he said “Yeah, you’re strong.” Ok, wow….that whole “tell me something you love about me” bit worked! That was nice! But I am. I humbly agree. And it’s because of all the storms I have gone through in my life. The ones I had to trudge straight through, head down, one step at a time. I’m grateful for those… they got me through this one. And when the next one comes, “here we go… let’s do this.” I don’t WANT another one! I’m not ASKING for another one! (Did You hear that up there? I’m not asking for more!) But we’re here on Earth to learn and grow, right? We’re here for the storms. “If nothing changes, nothing changes.” I heard once that we shouldn’t think of those so-called bombs as disasters, “but rather arrows, pointing us in a different direction.” That’s helpful.

In yoga you’ve most likely heard “we hold our issues in our tissues.” We hold on to stuff. I do! When I have a hard time I get knots in my back, a stiff neck, I can’t sleep, and I eat and get bigger. My tissues get bigger. (I should use that in yoga “we hold our french fries in our tissues.”) We do hold our issues inside though. We smile through the pain. We push our feelings aside and take care of other people. Thats why, sometimes in yoga, we cry. We move, we breathe, and we release. The issues in our tissues come out! The stiffness, the tension, the sweat, the tears…it flows right out. The past year and a half I have been neglecting my role as the Czar of Happy Hour, because I’ve had to handle other things. You might have noticed, I’m more present with work things. My time has freed up and I can do the things I need to do once again. I’m at the end of that storm cloud. I sold two houses, my daughter can drive, my ex-husband is improving daily, my mom has healed and is doing well, my son has transitioned into school, I’ve paid off huge debts, I’m planning a fun yoga event… I feel like I can breathe again. So at yoga on Thanksgiving Day, I cried. And it was good. Like letting go of a huge balloon with no knot. Can you picture me flying around the room making that fluttering balloon sound and gently landing at the back of the room, deflated and relaxed. That was me. All those issues came out of my pores, out of my tissues, out of my eyes, and it was wonderful!

It happens. Quite often. Lots of times in a yin yoga class people just cry. Sometimes in a vinyasa class. Any class really. It’s not weird, it’s a beautiful thing. A release. I hope you experience it one day. Let me know if you have. Now if I could just stop eating.

Thanks for “listening”… namaste.