Recent middle ear surgery has sidelined my yoga practice…or has it. I remember the day when the doctor told me, “No yoga for a month.” I thought surely he can’t be serious! How can I go a month without doing yoga? without teaching? But, of course, at least one of us in that conversation didn’t really understand yoga.
I awoke from surgery feeling dizzier than I was even before the surgery. Immediately I closed my eyes, placed one hand on my heart, one hand on my belly and started to take deep breath. A basic mantra came to mind, “Peace….peace” as I desperately sought peace in the rocking and rolling world around me. I was practicing yoga.
It’s been two weeks since my surgery. I still am not practicing ASANA (yoga poses) except for an occasional tree pose here or there. I am happy to say I DO have my balance! But I have continued to practice my yoga each and every day. In the silence I so often seek, in the deep breathing and meditation, as I seek patience for normalcy that often eludes me. Each of it is yoga, each of it is my practice. Some days just being still has been my practice; allowing my body to heal before getting busy again and taking on too much.
Often, especially in the west, we think of yoga as a series of poses and postures but this “time out” has reminded me that yoga is the way I live, it’s a philosophy, it’s a way of life, it’s always there for me no matter when I am or when I need it. Yoga is who I am…..I just had to be still to be reminded.