A Serious Relationship
Yoga changes things. Have you noticed that? Once upon a time you decided to start taking yoga classes, fitting it in to your schedule when you had some time or when you felt like you needed to move. Maybe at first, it was very casual. You thought to yourself, hmmm I have some free time, I think I will take a yoga class. Or a group of friends were going and it sounded fun, so you joined in. Maybe you even dropped out at times, going months without taking class, but then you missed it and got online to look at schedules again, to see when your favorite teacher was teaching. Then, maybe you started to follow that teacher, taking as many of their classes as you could. Or maybe a certain style really felt good so you started looking for those classes. Then you found yourself creating a yoga schedule. Something like Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays I do yoga at 6pm. Boom! Now you are committed. Now you are in a serious relationship….. with your yoga practice.
This is when you start to really notice the changes. You rearrange other aspects of your life for yoga. Sleeping schedules change because you want to be sure you can get up for that morning class, or because class totally wiped you out and you crash at like 9pm, or if you are really blessed, you get in that mid-day nap! Eating habits change. You start to notice how certain foods make your body feel or realize that eating heavily right before class is a bit uncomfortable, to say the least. You start to crave water! Incense and essential oils hold a whole new magic and you start to use them at home and at work. You chase them around the house to put oils on your kids or your partner. A three day a week practice schedule becomes a daily routine. You start getting up before the sun, eating dinner before dusk and talking about yoga all. the. time. And your friends and family start to think you are nuts!
Now this is the hard part. Our friends and family like us just they way we were. They liked that person that would go to a late movie with them, but the new you looks at the time and says “I can’t. I have yoga in the morning.” They miss that person that would join them for a greasy burger with a couple pints of beer, but now you ask them to join you at the new vegetarian or - gasp! - vegan restaurant. Your friends want to gossip about their co-worker and you tend to try to explain the other person’s perspective with compassion and an attempt at understanding.
You are different. The yoga has made you more self-aware, more disciplined, more connected. And if you have changed, grown, etc, then the people around you also have to change to allow space for you. Their lives used to hold a square space for your peg to fit right into, but now you have become hexagonal, so their space has to adjust. This can be very uncomfortable for them. After all, they didn’t choose to practice yoga, they didn’t choose all of these changes. They don’t understand. Find compassion for them, most of them will adjust for you, in time. Some may not.
Especially with our closest relationships we can be tempted to accommodate them, to sacrifice the things that have become important to us. I have gone through many phases of changing my practice schedule to make things easier for my partner, sometimes struggling to get it in at all. Everyone has to discover for themselves how to navigate this rough terrain, and it often includes a lot of trial and error.
The key, I have learned, is to never feel guilty for how your life choices may be affecting those around you. Those relationships are important to you, of course, and taking the needs of those you care about into consideration is a loving, generous, and essential part of a mutual relationship. But I want you to think of your yoga practice as another, very important relationship that requires cultivation, nurturing, love and care. Your yoga practice is probably the most important relationship you will ever have. It is your relationship with yourself. In the end, it is the development of that relationship that will make you a better partner, parent, child, friend, and co-worker. Like Ms. Houston said “Learning to love yourself is the greatest love of all!”
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