Life On and Off the Mat: Practicing Abhyasa

It's been two months since my dad passed away. I keep wondering if I'll ever feel whole again. I took a month break from teaching because I didn't think it was fair to process the trauma of my dad's final weeks and the grief of his subsequent loss in front of people carrying the burdens and promises of their own lives. But I believe in Abhyasa, so I showed up on my mat at my home studio almost immediately after peeling myself out of my tear-stained robe. That familiar sage Patanjali talked about Abhyasa (the effort of sustained practice) with Vairágya (dispassion, detachment - you know, the really easy stuff), so I got myself to the studio. I also believe in Sataya (truthfulness) so to say that Vairágya is being practiced in tandem, well...Let's just say what we do when a pose isn't available to us: not today. Vairágya is best left to another post, another learning moment in life, but not today.

After nearly two months of bearing the responsibility of my dad's care in his final days, I found myself depleted. Confessions of a Yoga Teacher: I did not reach for the oxygen mask for me first. The breath work, the established practice, and training buried itself in tracking sheets for morphine dosages and fentynal patch changes, and home hospice care. Despite my best efforts to focus solely on my dad and propping up my mom, my yoga found a way to sneak its way in when I would play along that I was a nurse when the cancer migrated to its new home in my dad's brain and he didn't remember me, or when I would guide him in a visualization/meditation exercise so he could relax just enough to sleep through the pain.

My personal yoga practice can best be described as 50% drill sergeant, 25% spiritual seeker, 20% anatomy nerd, and 5% this can't be normal-must fix. I've done a lot of work on and off the mat to manage my expectations of myself and others, but the loss of my dad unbalanced that work and while most days I feel like an emotional basket case, I've been told the only way to deal with your loss is to go through it. That sense of being present - even when you really want to numb with that case of Girl Scout cookies - can't be bargained away. Getting back into the studio so soon was probably not my best decision. I had been holding space for so many others during my dad's final days, I thought what was needed was for someone else to hold space for me. That's when I got smacked in the nose with Vairágya. Before the shoes left my feet, a teacher who I love and adore let me know that I just "needed to let him go." Indeed true , indeed too soon for me. It was meant to support, not to wound, but I have taken only one public class since. Call it what you will, but not practicing wasn't an option either.

My dad embodied the old saying "rolling stones gather no moss." Even at the end as if counseled by Dylan Thomas himself, he "rage[d,] rage[d] against the dying of the light. His response to my grief would have been to growl at me to get off that sofa, put the candy down, and cease binge watching t.v. So, I rolled out my mat on the living room floor, and held the space for myself. I won't lie: my first home practice post-loss was me sobbing in child's pose for 45 minutes followed by a weeping svasana. So, I took a step back from what I thought my practice was and reexamined my journals to find some key that I may have hid away during clearer days. Thank you past self because I found my new-old security blanket in Abhyasa. As Rolf Gates writes in Meditations from the Mat:

"Yoga is a practice not only of action but also observation and faith. When we observe our resistance to practice and then choose to act anyway, our practice becomes an expression of our faith in yoga - a faith that comes from both our past experience and trust that our practice will sustain us as we jump into the unknown. ...And so I practice without knowing how it will all turn out. ...along with clarity and faith, my commitment requires some will and effort. Commitment to practicing means I practice if it is easy...and I practice if it is hard...In the beginning, this sustained exertion may be an act of will, or ego, but as we continue, the practice itself creates momentum that propels us through the difficult moments of fear and [uncertainty]."

Therefore, I practice. I wish you peace. But if peace is as elusive as it is for me right now, then I wish you faith.

With love - sheila

March 5, 2018