Reflection on Day One

8/23/2011 Today was a tough day. I awoke at 7 after a long sad night looking forward to a day that ran non-stop from 8-5. I had found out on Monday night that a friend of mine from high school had died and I had yet to come to terms with it. By 8 am I was inside the Bear Habitat getting food ready, at 9 I was driving the disability shuttle around campus and at 11 I started 6 straight hours of class. I was pretty set to not have to think about the information I had learned the previous night. The mental strain of keeping something like that repressed made me tired and lethargy seemed to characterize my moments alone throughout the day. With 4.5 hours of class down, yoga honestly was the last thing I wanted to do. About midway through class, during a variation of mountain pose, I shut my eyes. Images of my lost friend crept into my consciousness and as fleeting of a moment as it was I felt connected to him again. I felt connected to him forever. As the poses continued and my body loosened up I could feel the weights that had so quickly accumulated on my soul begin to dissipate bringing me to a place where I could effectively deal with my own grief. It made a believer out of me. One yoga class brought me to a level of inward peace that I would have never imagined could have come on a day like today.

Throughout the week I continued doing poses for about fifteen minutes a day either in after I woke up or before I went to bed. The time for me has become a moment to decompress, to leave remove the fluctuations of my mind. Yoga has began creeping into my everyday life. "Let your feet be like leaves," resonates through my mind whenever I stand still. When stressed I've began pushing my shoulders together, making my torso long and my chest big and have felt better by doing so. It almost feels like as I move into a pose my outlook on a given situation changes slightly, in a positive manner. I'm intrigued and interested in where this journey may lead.