Humbled

There is nothing more humbling than a crippling stomach flu, or so I’m learning. While in the middle of a really great phase of being crazy about my physically practice; loving what my body was becoming capable of, exploring new sequencing and gearing up for a month of challenging back bending classes, I’ve been ground to a screeching halt by sickness. I was so “in” my body, even loving the soreness I’d feel after a particularly intense practices and then I was suddenly not in my body. In fact whatever was “in” my body, my body wanted it OUT! Violently out. I felt muscles contract from deep within that I’m not sure I’ve ever felt before. And even though the worst lasted less than a day the healing is taking quite some time. After 3 days I’m still not able to eat a meal so my energy is very low and though the weather is warming I don’t have enough circulation to keep my hands and feet warm. But over all I’m not bad off and that is contributed directly to my yoga practice, but not the physical aspect. No, the lesson of sickness definitely comes on a philosophical one. And my lesson: be humble.

We cannot control everything; surrender, be humble. We cannot make time move faster or slower; surrender, be humble. We cannot always do it alone; surrender, be humble. We will stumble; surrender, be humble. Every one of these statements I have either bumped up against or run full speed square into it.

We cannot control everything. No, we can’t. I try to live a healthy lifestyle; I eat well, exercise and keep a regular sleep schedule. But sickness happens and no matter how healthy you are viruses are out there and one found me. I had to cancel 2 classes while I was sick because I couldn’t stand up straight. And as upsetting as that is to me I have to be ok with it. I have to respect what’s going on in my own body and give it time to repair itself. As well as have respect enough for my students not to infect them with a very uncomfortable illness. It was a situation I had to surrender too and instead of feeling angry feel humbled.

We cannot make time move faster or slower. I want to be better I want to eat a salad and a sandwich, and I want to do down dog but I’m not ready. I’m still healing and this healing process is taking this long. There’s not much I can do about it. But I can teach my classes and I can even walk my dog it just means that after wards I have to come home and eat a few saltines and take a nap. Slowly my routine is returning to normal but in the meantime I have to accept this as the slow part of the steam and go with the flow, surrender to the flow and be humbled by the speed.

We cannot always do it alone. This is a hard one. Why are we wired to think that not being able to do EVRYTHING alone is a sign of weakness? That’s setting us up for some serious feelings of failure. Even though asking for help could be seen as a triumph we condition ourselves to avoid it at all cost. I love helping people and I’ve gotten very good at helping people accept help but its taken years for me to be able to accept offers of kindness. So even while I’m sick I have to remind myself that it’s ok to let people bring me ginger ale and crackers or pick up my dog for a play date. Recently I moved to a small town and have begun to build a remarkable community network so there are plenty of people who have genuinely offered kindness and concern. They make it very easy to surrender to that kindness and very easy to feel humbled by their concern.

We will stumble. We will all stumble and at any point. Yesterday by the end of the day I felt pretty good so I attempted to eat something more substantial than a cracker. Mistake. I spent the night cramped up and the morning in a not so flattering digestive situation. We all make mistakes like that and even bigger mistakes with greater consequences but it’s ok. We often learn our most valuable lessons after stumbling and after falling. I remind my students of this whenever we practice arm balancing also that falling can be a cause for laughter not anger. If we let go and let the stumble happen and let the lessons come and let the healing begin our journey, whether it’s to optimum health or spiritual enlightenment, becomes easier even enjoyable and possibly shorter. Surrender to the path and be humbled by the missteps.