Sunday 10am.
On my chat I got two messages from two
of my great friends:
“Going to Megan´s workshop,
absolutely inspiring and amazing!”
The other one said:
“ Going to Karina´s workshop,
adjustments...”
As I was reading the messages I felt
very happy for them but also nostalgic of not going to yoga workshops
and not being “out there” continuing my studies, disciplined
practice, etc, etc, etc...
A few seconds later I took a look at
myself, almost naked, on my bed, on a sunny Sunday, breast feeding my
4 month old beautiful child. I thought to myself: THIS IS MY YOGA
PRACTICE. Suddenly I realized that Motherhood has been my highest
state of yoga.
“I´m loosing it” I kept thinking
when I was seeing on Facebook all the bombardic ideas, classes,
workshops, events, that my colleagues are constantly doing, really
thinking and feeling that I was getting behind. As a yoga
practitioner and teacher I was very used to be constantly training,
practicing, studying, and so on. Then, maternity came and the rhythm
stopped. Time is not just my time, in fact, it is all except my time.
After the initial hectic time of a new
born mom, the lack of sleep, and the hormone swing, I started going
back to my center, remembering what was that I had learned from all
my years of yoga practice? I started to think of what yoga was all
about. What did it mean that “all you learn on your yoga mat, you
learn it for life?” Had I been training for this very moment?
After many thoughts and feelings, I
realized that I am not practicing yoga but BEING yoga, and when you
become your practice, then you are at the highest and purest state of
it.
Motherhood is all about patience,
persistency, continuity, giving it all without expecting anything in
return, being in the moment, developing intuition, and unconditional
love. There is no other moment in my life that I can compare more to
metta practice than when breast feeding while wishing my child to be
happy and healthy, or chanting mantras for him to ease a stomach
pain, or relaxing him at sleeping times, not to mention my constant
moola bandha and uddiyana bandha practice to enforce my pelvic floor
and recover my “normal” body. I cannot feel more compassionate
than when my baby is crying of fever or cramps. And the list can
continue....
So as I realize that I am using all the
tools that the practice can give me, I can become one with the
practice and BECOME yoga, and in this way motherhood is my highest
state!
The rest will come when it comes.
