Showing Up for Change

        I really wasn’t feeling the primary series today, but I had an epiphany, as I was moving swiftly through the poses: how much my practice has morphed into this living breathing entity that I have to wrestle with. When I first started, it was as if the practice was outside myself—like an acquaintance that I would pretend to know really well.
       But if there is one thing yoga has taught me, it is that change is slow. At first your body awkwardly transitions, vinyasas are tiresome and headstand seems like another planet. But with weeks, months, years even, you’ll one day be practicing and recognize that old hurts are now rejuvenating—the breath always brings you back.
       The hard part about yoga, similar to life, is that you have to show up to the mat, put in the hours, the breaths, the sun salutes, the vinyasas, the forward folds, the twists, the inversions, the warriors, the backbends. In order for any change to truly happen, we have to show up in yoga just like we have to show up in life. One day you will wake up to find you can breath a little easier—and what once seemed painful and impossible was a blessing in disguise.
        We have to confront our aches and pains, our not-so-limber lower backs and hamstrings. The point is, we have to feel things out, work at them and be patient. Change in life, like change in the body happens when we stop focusing on the goal and dance with the uncomfortable present.