Yoga on the Bad Days

When I wrote this, I was not having a good day. Sometimes when you feel bad you don't want to do yoga. But when the brain won't clear, moving the emotions through the body can help. Creating space in the joints and releasing tension from muscles and fascia gets breath to the deep recesses of the body. The breath moves emotion through and around. In this jumbling, the unknown happens; and, at the end of the practice, there's a little more focus as the senses and the self come toward balance.

When things are stuck, it seems all we can ask for is this shifting around. This is deep stuff that's beyond our everyday stresses. It's a nice idea to breathe in 'good' emotions and breathe out 'bad' ones. That's a concept to be used when it's useful, i.e. when someone cuts you off in traffic. But sometimes that idea seems a million miles off. It turns out we have all the emotions - 'good' and 'bad' - inside us all the time. Becoming aware of them (and their imbalances) is the way of the yogi.

Your yoga toolkit includes asana (the physical poses), meditation, pranayama (breath awareness) and philosophy. When we find ourselves in crisis, we use these tools to move the breath in and out and to move the emotions around. Neglecting them is akin to a carpenter neglecting his hammer when driving a nail into a piece of wood - not the most informed move. On rough days, use your tools...create space...move toward focus and balance.