Yoga and the art of the gentle challenge

My friends Jane and Jacob know how very true this is.

The people who know me well (actually, anyone who has read even just a few of my blog posts) know that athleticism is not among my gifts. Ironically, I grew up among generations of great football and baseball players, golfers and even horseback riders. I married one of the captains of our college’s football team (don’t ask me what he saw in me – I still haven’t figured it out). Other than a brief stint in soccer (I wasn’t a horrible goalie) and swimming (I was certified as a lifeguard/WSI), the whole fitness thing just hasn’t been, well, my thing.

Don't get me started on the zen nature of exercise.

When I titled my blog “The Yoga Pants Diaries,” I wanted to make it clear that it was a play on irony. The closest I had gotten to a yoga mat was walking through the home fitness section at Walmart, and my connection to yoga pants had more to do with the fact that they are black, stretch and withstand stains than anything having to do with sun salutation or child’s pose (but more on that later).

My blog describes me as a person who lives in a idyllic town where many residents have achieved principles of simple living and mindfulness.

Let me be clear: I am not one of these people. I never have been.

I can’t really explain why. I guess I have always felt that time relaxing and being mindful is time better spent doing more productive activities. You know, like reading Tolstoy and power-washing the siding. That’s not to say that I’m opposed to binge-watching Netflix. It just means that I’m usually multitasking (dishes, folding laundry, reading finance articles, etc.) while I’m doing it.

So when I joined a cycling studio in town as a means to get in a motivating workout a few times a week (no pain, no gain and all that) and Laree, the studio owner, encouraged me to try yoga, I muttered something about faking shavasona and hid from her for a while.

It’s not like the concept of yoga was completely foreign to me. Back in the day, I danced – a lot. I always preferred the discipline of ballet and tap to the bohemian, free-flowing rhythms of modern and jazz, but I can find my way out of fifth position and do an arabesque, thank you very much.

But yoga felt vulnerable to me for some reason. I just wasn’t ready to go there.

Then, I had a conversation with my 14 year-old niece, Lauren.

“I love yoga,” she said. “It helps me stay grounded.”

I asked her to say more. “I don’t know – I just feel stressed most of the time, but when I’m doing yoga, I don’t.”

That was worth considering. I have tried everything from red wine to Celexa to achieve that, so maybe I could give yoga a fighting chance.

It’s hard to describe yoga to people who haven’t experienced it before. Depending on the nature of your practice, it ranges anywhere from a series of stretches supported by breathing to a full-fledged, sweat-it-out, flexibility and resistance workout.

I like to think of it as my gentle challenge.

My life is full of challenges. And don’t get me wrong – I’m not looking for sympathy, because I’ve structured it that way. I’m competitive and driven enough that I put challenges in front of me to keep me motivated and moving forward. That’s ok.

But there is capacity – and we should make room for – gentle challenges. These are challenges that feed us, but in a nurturing way. The best way I can describe it is when my kids were learning to walk. They’d start toddling and I’d clap and say, “Come to me! Come to Mommy! You can do this!” and they’d get that “Shit, I’m doing it!” look on their faces and fall into my arms, giggling with delight. The space between us became wider and wider, and soon, they were walking around the house like it was their job.

It’s ok to be driven, but can you imagine what the world would be like if everyone had room in their day for a gentle, nurturing challenge? One where, for at least a few seconds, we could reach for what we didn’t feel was possible a few minutes ago, without anyone judging us? And the people who are watching us are cheering us on, saying they know we can do it?

Yoga has become that for me.

I’m not perfect at it, but it’s mine. And I need that. I’m glad that I see that now.

Namaste.