(To mark the second anniversary of Writing Yoga’s arrival in the world, I’m reprinting the post that I shared with readers last year. I hope those of you who have kept journals over the past year will find new ways to reflect on the peace that journaling and yoga have brought you. And I hope these thoughts will prompt new readers to reflect on the peace that they find in their journals and on their mats. Thanks to all for your support, and special thanks to Linda Cogozzo, my wonderful editor and publisher, for her ongoing faith in my work.)

Sometimes I wonder what might happen if we could hand out journals to all the people in the world and ask everyone to take ten minutes from their busy lives to write in the pages of their journals. What would they write? What would they say?

If they were starving, would the flow of words and ideas nourish their spirits, if not their bodies?

If they were fighting, would the words distract them from battle? Would they forget their anger and wounds and be able to see the beauty in their lives? In the world?

Would people find peace in their journals in the same way that I find peace in the pages of my journal?

This month marks the first anniversary of Writing Yoga’s arrival into the world, and I’m still amazed at how the moment I open to a fresh page in my journal, I feel peace descend on me.

It’s a feeling of peace that comes with a sense of possibility, a sense of what the future might bring. My pen moves across the page, and the world slows down, no longer racing by.

In the pages of my journal, I can take time to reflect on what’s happened in my asana practice and what’s happening in my life or just muse on the swaying of a pine tree’s boughs in the wind.

I can see the world in a different way–through my heart, not just through my eyes.

It doesn’t matter what may be happening around me–waves crashing on the sand, a motorboat speeding offshore, the blare of a boombox down the beach–I can open my journal and find peace.

That sense of peace, I’ve discovered, doesn’t come from cutting myself off from the world but rather from immersing myself in it.

Instead of swaddling myself in silence or distancing myself from the world, my practice of keeping a journal inspires me to move deeper and more fully into the experience of life.

Instead of being disturbed by the sound of an ambulance, for instance, I’ll notice the siren and feel a sudden compassion for the person in distress and for the people who are helping the person in distress.

Instead of finding myself impatient at the slowness of the check-out line in the local grocery store, I’ll notice a woman in a wheelchair at the front of the line struggling to bag her own groceries and feel a sudden sense of gratitude for my ability to walk and for witnessing the amazing courage displayed by someone confined to a wheelchair.

These are the kinds of connections that my journal helps me make.

I never know where my pen will take me on any given day. As long as I have enough paper and ink, or a fully charged laptop, I can go anywhere, explore any subject, ask any question, each word pulling me deeper into the world and into myself.

The deeper I go, the more peacefulness I find, a peacefulness that is, oddly, beyond words.

Each time we pick up our journals and begin to write, we are inspiring peace in ourselves and in the world.

In this way we are all journaling for peace, helping to bring peace to our souls, as well as to the world, one page, one word, at a time.

Practice Journal:

Here are a few questions to help you explore the notion of peace in your life and in your practice. They may serve as useful writing prompts to get you started, or they may inspire you to ask your own questions.

Find a comfortable seat on your mat or in your favorite chair, take a few moments to review the questions, select one (or more), then open your journal and begin writing.

Try setting aside a minimum of ten minutes for each question that you decide to explore.

1. How do your yoga poses inspire peace? Which pose do you find most peaceful?

2) How can you incorporate the peace you find on your mat into your daily life?

3) Where does peace come from? What needs to be present for peace to appear? And what makes peace so shy, so reluctant, to appear or make itself known?

4) If you had the power to bring peace into a troubled area of the world–a war-torn country, perhaps, or your own neighborhood (or even your own home)–where would you bring it and why?

5) How do you make sure peace will endure?

6) How do you act if peace is absent? What can you do to bring peace into the world?

7) Can you find peace in the tumult of the city? Can you find it in the quiet of the country? What attributes does peace have? Can you list them?

Note: After finishing your journal practice today, perhaps you’ll take a moment to donate a small amount to your favorite charity as a way of sharing the peace that your journal inspires in you. Thanks. -Bruce Black

When I enter a yoga class and step onto my mat, I place my trust in my teachers to guide me through the poses safely and with a minimum risk of injury.

I trust that each teacher will explain each pose in a way that will make it accessible, suggesting adjustments if my hamstrings are too tight or my back too sore.

I trust that the teacher will provide a framework for understanding the pose within the context of a larger yoga tradition—translating the Sanskrit name of the pose, for instance, into English, or providing a deeper understanding of how I might benefit from doing the pose.

I trust that the teacher will warn the class in advance if a pose presents certain challenges of balance or strength, and that he will suggest ways for us to address those challenges with modifications to the pose appropriate for our skill level (or with an alternative if the pose itself presents too great a challenge).

I trust the teacher not to force me into any pose that I might feel too difficult and to help me exit a pose safely if I find myself—or feel myself—in danger.

I trust that the teacher will share her passion for yoga with us as well as her passion for life.

I trust that the teacher will share insights into how yoga and life are intertwined, which means that I trust the teacher to share how he lives his life using the principles that he finds in yoga.

I trust the teacher to be herself and to accept each person who steps on the mat in her class to be himself or herself.

And I trust the teacher to encourage each of us to use the yoga poses to explore our body and our life to the fullest.

With gratitude to all my yoga teachers for helping me cultivate a deeper sense of trust in life and in myself on and off the mat.

Practice Journal: How does your yoga teacher help you cultivate a deeper sense of trust in your life and in yourself? What do you expect of your yoga teacher? Write: 10 min.

Stepping back from anger isn’t easy.

When people who you love are taken from life too soon or when life doesn’t go as planned, you can feel hurt and angry

You can slip over the edge into anger over “little” things, too, such as if someone leaves dirty breakfast dishes in the sink or if a friend forgets to call.

I know that I can feel anger rise over something as seemingly insignificant as a loved one leaving the house in the morning and forgetting to say goodbye.

I used to become angry about all of these “big” and “little” hurts, these things that I perceived as injuries, personal insults, challenges to my ability—my power?—to shape the world and my own life.

But then I started practicing yoga and learned to let go of my anger.

Each pose helped me learn to stop holding onto unrealistic expectations, taught me to discern false expectations—expectations of my own creation, really—and to see how such expectations made me feel angry and created a spiral of anger that fed on itself.

Yoga helped me break the spiral. The poses helped me see the world as it is, not as I might want or expect it to be. Instead of becoming angry whenever others didn’t live up to my expectations, I had to learn how to shift my expectations, letting go of those that were unrealistic, and become better acquainted with reality.

It was in my first yoga class that I began to let go of my anger. With eyes closed, arms limp at my sides, legs loosely spread, I lay in Savasana listening to my yoga teacher’s calming voice as she encouraged us to let go of tension in our bodies.

She guided us from one part of the body to another—ankles, calves, hips, shoulders, neck, jaw, tongue—so that we could check our bodies for tension. Each time she mentioned another part of the body, I felt myself release the day’s frustration, disappointment, and anger. I felt my muscles loosen. I felt the tension melt into the earth.

In each pose I looked past unrealistic expectations, self-doubts, and fears. The movement of my body in Downward Dog or Triangle demanded my full attention. It was impossible to keep thoughts of anger in my head and do the poses at the same time. I had to learn how to step back from anger and let it go.

With each step back, I gained a new perspective, a brief second in which to pause and notice my response to life. In that moment, I realized, I didn’t have to respond immediately with criticism or anger. I could recognize my momentary anger as it surfaced, the same way that I could notice the way I entered a challenging pose.

By the end of each class, I noticed how my anger had seeped away. I began to understand that life wasn’t about holding onto anger, a misconception that I’d held onto for years. It was about letting go of anger. And the thought that I didn’t have to hold onto my anger anymore—that I could be myself without being angry all the time—was liberating and energizing.

Since that first yoga class, I’ve learned to accept that life is not what I might want it to be but what it is—raw, messy, unpredictable, always changing.

Life, like yoga, often fails to go as planned. People die whether I love them or not, just as they get sick or go through divorce or fall out of Tree Pose.

It’s the way life is—a process as natural as breathing—and nothing, certainly not anger or rage, can change the way life works.

Thanks to yoga, I’ve become more aware of my actions and thoughts in each pose. It’s this awareness that lets me see anger as a reflection of my own unrealistic expectations.

My yoga practice has helped me learn to step back from these expectations. As it turns out, stepping back is the first step in learning how to deal with anger.

Practice Journal: One way to step away from anger is to recognize whatever might be making you angry. Try listing the things that arouse your anger. Can you trace the arc of your anger–the way it might escalate from a slight disturbance to an irrational boil? Can you take a moment to pause–just as you might pause in a challenging pose–to notice what’s disturbing you? Who or what might cause you to feel such anger? Can you identify the root of your anger? And can you find a way to move through it without letting it upset your balance? Write: 15 min.

At times I’m in awe of how the simple act of lifting my hips in Downward Dog, or resting my forehead on the mat in Child’s Pose, can make a difference in my life.

Each time that I step onto my mat, the poses help me become more fully aware in each moment. I notice how I enter or leave a pose, how muscles tighten or expand, how my breath flows, how I no longer fear results (well, I try not to fear results) but rather explore a pose with confidence and curiosity.

When I’m able to carry this awareness off my mat, I can detect a difference in the way that I stand while waiting on line at the grocery store or while walking through my neighborhood before starting work each morning. I notice how my spine feels straighter and more erect, my muscles more toned, my bones more aligned as a result of my yoga practice. I notice that I am more patient, less likely to lose my temper, more willing to see the world from another person’s point of view.

Recently, I noticed, too, how my yoga practice truly makes a difference in the world, how our yoga poses can influence the lives of people who are practicing on the mat next to ours or inhabiting another part of the world miles away. I learned this lesson last month when I joined my teachers, Jaye Martin and Rita Knorr, for a yoga fundraiser to benefit the people of Haiti.

We gathered together on our mats, almost one hundred yogis, in the grand ballroom of the Vinoy Hotel in St. Petersburg. Even before the practice began as we warmed up, I could feel the ripples of energy pulsing off the mats into the room and beyond. With each pose, each breath, it felt like we were transmitting excitement, good will, and healing energy to Haitians across the sea, strangers who one day might benefit from the ripples of energy (and donations) that we were sending to Haiti’s distant shore.

On that day, I could see how our yoga practice helped us reach beyond ourselves. It showed us how to care for one another and how to set an intention of mindful compassion for ourselves, our friends, and our family, as well as for strangers who we might never meet but who we could touch with our hearts, if only we opened up to the possibility within each of us.

That is the power of yoga.

Practice Journal: How does yoga make a difference in your life? Can your practice help you become more aware of the ripples of compassion, hope, and faith that you send off your mat to inspire yourself and others? Can you tap into the power of yoga to bring about positive change in your life and in the lives of others? Write: 10 min.

At the beginning of a new year, I tend to feel out of balance, not sure what I’ve left behind (or unfinished) in the year that’s past or where I’m going (or what I’ll accomplish) in the year ahead.

It’s an unstable time for me, a time when I need to re-evaluate my life and the direction that I’m heading. Often this process of self-scrutiny means that I lose sight of where I am right now. And that means I lose the stability that I strive for throughout the year.

So, as I start the year, I need to find stability. I need to remember not to worry too much about the future or what I might not have done in the year that just ended. I need to accept where I am and let my life unfold out of that acceptance.

Two ways that I find stability now… and throughout the year… is by writing in my journal and by practicing yoga. The act of writing and doing yoga reminds me to stay focused in the present.

My thoughts may wander into the future, I may make plans, trying to discern what I want to do this year, this month, this week.But then each pose, each page, brings me back to the present, gives me a chance to sift through my desires to find the one that’s deepest (and truest)… the one that I want to devote my life –or at least the next week– to bringing into existence.

Writing and yoga give me a chance to let my fears and anxieties settle and disappear in the flow of words and motion. These two practices allow me to hear my breath and feel my pulse and focus on the present… and what I feel most deeply in this moment.

One of the poses that helps me feel most stable, most firmly rooted in the present, is Downward-facing Dog. In Downward-facing Dog I have to refrain from moving too far forward (into the future) with worries, or too far backward (into the past) with regrets. The pose reminds me that I’m here now, rooted to the earth, joining past and future in this one pose. Not yet in forward bend or handstand, nor in any of the other poses that arise out of Downward-facing Dog. Just here.

I’ve always wondered why this pose has the name Downward-facing Dog… and I found something interesting on the internet about it:

“Probably the most recognized yoga position today is the ‘downward facing dog’. A corresponding Sanskrit word, adho mukha svanasana, has been invented to match this. This is, however, erroneous. There is no such asana name in the tradition of yoga. So what is the proper term for downward dog? It’s Meru Asana. Meru refers to the sacred Mount Meru, considered to reside at the centre of the Universe. This yoga pose, then, represents stability, balance, strength and support on all levels; not the stretch-like action of your pet getting up from its afternoon nap!” http://www.discover-yoga-online.com/sanskrit-words.html

Thinking about the pose as Meru Asana–Mount Meru– helps me better understand why I feel such firmness in it. (Firmness, in fact, is at the root of the word “stable.”)

Here’s what I found on another website discussing Patanjali and what he says is necessary to create stability in our practice and in our lives:

“Patanjali talks of cultivating sthira (steadiness, firmness) and sukha (gentleness, softness) in our yoga practice. The qualities denoted by these two sanskrit words can be applied to the whole of your yoga practice – from the opening warm-ups and sun salutations, to the more dynamic sequences and softer finishing poses. Cultivating sthira requires us to maintain an awareness and connection to the earth beneath us. Once this equilibrium has been attained, you are ready to become mindful of the importance of a light, free approach to your posture and asanas. The aim is to take a consistently steady, but gentle, approach, to our practice of yoga  – and also to our lives away from the mat.” http://www.yoga-abode.com/ybites/sthira_sukha

Steadiness and firmness… two qualities that help us create stability in our poses and in our lives as one year comes to an end and a new year begins.

Practice Journal: When you come out of Downward-facing Dog today, open your journal and write down a minimum of three ways that the pose helps you feel more stable. They might be physical qualities, such as stronger shoulders or stretched hamstrings or deeper breathing. Or they could be emotional qualities–a sense of firmness or steadfastness or patience. How does the pose create these qualities? What allows the pose to cause such emotions to arise? Do you feel stable in this pose? Why? And how might the pose help you create more stability in your life?

Friday, 1:15 pm.

It’s windy, and dark gray clouds race past as a storm off the east coast brings wind and clouds but no rain yet.

The air is warm, but the breeze makes it feel cooler.

I’m sitting on my mat, cross-legged, listening to the wind rush through the trees. Everything is in motion–every tree and blade of grass–moving as if the energy of the wind has charged every living branch and leaf.

On my mat I listen to the wind, awed by how much it sounds like my breath, how the movement of air comes in gusts and then settles into a gentle breeze and then gusts again, almost as if the universe is exhaling and inhaling, a song of the breath.

My legs are crossed with care so that I don’t rub any part of my leg against the ant bites that I got yesterday while mowing the lawn and trimming the bushes. Painful bites, just above my ankle, and just below my knee. Overnight they turned into itchy blisters.

I can view the bites and bemoan my fate, lamenting the discomfort, making myself miserable, or I can think how lucky I am not to have gotten more bites.

I can express gratitude for my body’s response to the poisons, can be thankful that the itchiness and stinging sensations aren’t worse.

I have a choice: to accept what is rather than to complain about what is not.

My yoga practice helps me make these choices. In a challenging pose like Warrior I, for instance, I can make myself miserable by focusing on what I can’t do, on aching quads and tight lower back, or I can focus on some positive aspect of the pose, such as how my legs support me even if they ache and wobble a bit.

Yes, the ant bites still itch as I begin my practice today. They are still painful.

But the bites don’t have the power to block my ability to see the thick gray clouds rushing past overhead or to hear the gusts of wind echoing the sound of my breath.

The ant bites are just a tiny part of a larger world, and my practice reminds me that just as storm clouds pass out of sight, so too will irritation and discomfort, whether in the form of ant bites or a difficult pose.

Practice Journal: How does yoga help you deal with irritation and discomfort in your life, whether an ant bite, an annoying friend, relative, or business associate, or an uncomfortable position on your mat? Can you view discomfort as a passing cloud? Can you accept irritation as a temporary stage, as fleeting as the wind? Write: 10 minutes.

Thanks to all:

This is the last posting for 2012, and I’d like to offer thanks to all of you who have stopped by this site to read these postings. You inspire me to keep practicing and musing about yoga in my journals. A special thanks to my teachers, family, and friends who inspired my efforts over the past year. See you on the mat (with journal and pen) in 2013!

How does our yoga practice help us become more mindful of the blessings in our lives, especially during this month of November as we prepare to pause and give thanks?

Why should performing various poses on our mat—stretching, twisting, bending, and reaching—infuse us with a sense of gratitude toward others?

Why should pressing into Downward Dog or lifting our shoulders and chests off the mat in Cobra increase our ability to sense a divine presence in the universe?

Whether we fold over in a Forward Bend, lean backward in Camel, or stretch and twist in Triangle, what happens, I think, is that our poses grant us the chance to slow down from the frenetic, ever-rushing pace of our daily lives to live fully in each moment.

The poses are a gift that let us feel the mystery of our breath, the beating of our hearts, and through these mysteries we can sense a greater mystery much larger than ourselves. It’s in these moments that we can feel a deep and abiding sense of gratitude for a divine presence and for our ability to be present in that larger presence.

With this increased self-awareness—this ability to hear our own beating hearts, to listen to the sound of our own breath—we can become aware of other hearts beating like ours. We can sense the heart beating in the person practicing on a nearby mat, or in the person practicing on a mat across the room or sitting behind the front desk or walking past the studio.

It’s through our poses that we come to this awareness, this deep understanding that we share the same earth, breathe the same air, inhabit the same flesh, the same blood.

Through our poses we become aware that this increased sense of awareness is yoga’s gift to us, and it’s what I’m most grateful for about my practice.

Yoga has helped me pay closer attention to the smallest details in my life, details that I used to take for granted or overlook. Now I can see friends and relatives as integral to my life, can see which activities support and nurture me, sustaining my efforts, my hopes, and my dreams.

Downward Dog has helped me notice the blessing of a flexible spine and the mobility of my hips. Tree Pose has helped me notice the sturdiness of my legs, ankles, and toes. Plank has helped me notice the strength of my wrists and fingers. And with growing awareness of these qualities–flexibility, sturdiness, and strength–I’ve noticed subtle changes in my life.

Increased flexibility, for instance, has helped me become more able to listen to opinions that may differ from my own. Greater sturdiness has given me the ability to face challenges with more confidence. And new-found strength lets me stay longer (and with greater equanimity) in a challenging situation or relationship.

When I’m in a pose, each muscle, each tendon and bone in my body sings of gratitude, and so does each fingernail, each strand of hair, each cell.

As this month unfolds and our national day of thanksgiving makes its annual approach, you might ask yourself how your yoga practice helps you become more mindful of—and grateful for—the world around you.

When you sit down at your Thanksgiving table later this month, remember the blessings in your life, and try to understand how yoga might help you become more aware of each moment, each heartbeat, each breath, each gift of life.

Practice Journal: What are you grateful for today? How does your yoga practice help you become aware of these blessings? Take a moment to make a list. Then consider how a particular person inspires your gratitude. How might you express your gratitude? Write: 15 min.

It’s a mystery how it happens, but, thanks to the poses that I do on my mat, I can feel a deeper sense of compassion for others and for myself. Why is that, I wonder?

When I press my palms against the mat in Downward Dog, I can feel compassion for my tight hamstrings and stiff shoulders.

Standing on one leg in Tree Pose, I can feel compassion for the back of my wobbling calf, my out-of-balance hips.

In Plank, I can feel compassion for my aching wrists and elbows.

And in Mountain Pose, I can feel compassion flow through the bloodstream and make its way into the world as I raise my arms to the sky and lean over into a Forward Bend.

The process of learning the different yoga poses–especially the more challenging poses–has taught me in unexpected ways how to soften my heart and allow myself to be who I am rather than push or strive to be someone else.

Often, this renewed sense of compassion comes in the form of a softer, gentler voice that whispers: “Relax,” or “Lighten up,” or “Stop being so hard on yourself.”

What I’ve discovered is that compassion lets you see yourself and others in the moment…and this vision gives you the ability to share, heart-to-heart, what’s deepest and true about yourself.

Compassion brings the whole world into sharper focus.

It lets you see the suffering and pain beneath the surface because, in some mysterious way, when you’re compassionate toward yourself, you can let go of your own suffering and pain and be fully in and part of the world around you.

It’s compassion that compels you to act in some way –to volunteer at your local foodbank, to give a donation to the animal shelter, to help an immigrant learn to speak English–to relieve the suffering of the world.

It’s compassion that compels you to give a hug to the yogi practicing on the mat next to yours after he or she has just fallen out of a pose.

And it’s compassion that compels you to extend your arms in Downward Dog and soften your heart.

“If you want to be happy,” says the Dalai Lama, “practice compassion. And if you want others to be happy, practice compassion.”

Practice Journal: How do your yoga poses help you practice compassion? What happens on the mat that allows you to be compassionate ? Why do you think practicing compassion might lead to happiness? Write: 15 min.

I lay awake, muscles strained and sore, unable to sleep after the yoga class that I’d taken earlier in the day.

We had explored “easy” or basic poses, and the teacher had encouraged us to stay in the poses far longer than usual. Her approach turned “easy” poses into much more advanced poses.

While I held each pose, exploring new feelings, new ways of being. I forgot about the straining hamstring or tight hip joint. I ignored the discomfort and pain and kept pushing. The instructor led us into new territory, inviting us to experiment, and I trusted her as an experienced teacher to know how far I could go. But that was a mistake.

An unspoken partnership exists between student and teacher. As a student, you need to know your own body in ways the teacher cannot and will never know it. You can trust your teacher, but, first, you must trust your own inner teacher. Otherwise, you may pay the price of trusting an overzealous teacher: sore muscles; sleepless nights; laying awake wondering why you pushed so hard instead of resting in child’s pose.

How do you determine how far to stretch or twist? How do you know what’s in your best interest, what might help you experience the pose without suffering an injury, stiffness, or soreness after you leave class?

Practicing yoga is an ongoing process of making decisions: Will this pose help or hurt? Will pushing further set me back or help me advance in my practice? Each decision leads from one choice to another. Yoga, in some profound way, is all about learning to make wise choices in our practice and in our lives.

What is a wise choice? In an attempt to offer a definition, I came up with a brief list as I lay awake thinking about the choices that I’d made earlier in my yoga class:

• A wise choice is beneficial.
• A wise choice enriches your practice
• A wise choice nurtures your body and your spirit.
• A wise choice helps you connect with your heart.
• A wise choice gives you more energy.
• A wise choice generates happiness and joy.
• A wise choice lets you sleep at night.

Each of us has a different scale by which we measure our choices and the worth of our choices, and what is right or what works for one may not—will likely not—work for another.

In the end, we have to learn to rely on our inner teacher and teach ourselves to make wise choices for our practice and for our lives.

What is a wise choice? It’s the choice that leads us away from egotism and self-delusion toward wisdom, self-knowledge, and inner peace.

Practice Journal: Notice the decisions you make on your mat the next time you take a class. What prompts you to make one choice rather than another? How would you define a “wise” choice? Make a list of choices that you made in your yoga practice (or in your life) today, then set aside fifteen minutes to write about why you made these choices and whether they proved beneficial.

Years ago, when I first stepped onto my mat, I pushed myself as fast and as hard as possible through soreness, fatigue, and uncertainty so that I could “master” the new poses that I was learning in my yoga classes.

I pushed myself through aching muscles–muscles that I never knew existed!–and kept pushing myself through tiredness, both during and after class, unaware that I might be overefforting. At the time, I believed the way to do yoga–to do anything, really–was to push myself to my limit and beyond.

I was lucky, thanks to caring and careful teachers, that I didn’t injure myself in those early days the way that I’d hurt myself running (which was why I’d turned to yoga). Instead of finding teachers who, like my old running coach, tried to instill in us a work ethic based on the mantra “No pain, no gain,” I found teachers whose mantra was the complete opposite: “No pain, no pain.”

My mat, I discovered, wasn’t a place where I had to compete with anyone, not even myself. It was a place where the only thing that I had to do (as my teachers reminded me each week) was to breathe. If I was pushing too hard, trying too hard, overefforting in a pose, I had to remind myself to slow down, pull back, and just breathe. I had to learn the difference between pushing myself too hard and not pushing hard enough.

Sometimes this line was blurred, other times completely invisible, and I wouldn’t know until the following day, thanks to sore muscles or a stiff back, that I had pushed too hard, twisted too much, held a pose too long. But in time I began to recognize the soreness and fatigue as signs that helped me become aware of when I had crossed the line.

It ‘s taken years to develop the skills to “see” the line before I cross it, to know when I’m overefforting before I push too hard, so that I can pull back without causing injury or strain. One of the things that helped was taking a gentle restorative class. Each week we learned to do Moon Salutations instead of Sun Salutations. We spent time massaging our feet instead of trying to touch our toes. I learned to show myself a little compassion, to lighten up and see the world as it is instead of as I might have wanted it to be or as I thought it should be. We rolled on our backs in Happy Baby, stretched our hamstrings in Forward Bends, lay in passive positions like Reclining Bound Angle (Supta Baddha Konasana) without moving for long stretches of time.

The class helped me slow down and develop patience, not only with myself but with others. The same way that I stopped expecting myself to reach goals that were often unrealistic or unattainable, I stopped expecting so much of others. My yoga practice helped me notice when I was rushing through the check-out line at the grocery store instead of stopping to talk to the check-out clerk. It helped me accept that my daughter may never remove the hair out of the bathtub drain after she showers, and it taught me to view the foibles and idiosyncrasies of other family members (as well as my own flaws) with more patience.

I stayed in the gentle restorative class for a month or two before leaving to sign up for a different class. What I discovered when I left the gentle restorative class was that I entered challenging poses with more patience (and more compassion for my aging body, too). Somehow I had learned to soften and no longer push toward an unrealistic goal. Instead of spending all my energy on overefforting, I could explore–with patience and compassion– where I was in the moment.

Practice Journal:

Do you know when you’re overefforting?  Can you tell when you’re pushing too hard in your practice or is it only after you’ve stepped off the mat–sometimes hours, sometimes days later–that you find yourself too tired or too sore to move? How can you begin to recognize that you are overefforting before you’ve gone too far?

The next time that you step onto your mat, try to notice when you’re straining or pushing too hard and when you’re moving with ease through the poses. When do you keep pushing? And when do you pause to rest?

Write: 15 min.