What Mindy Missed...

I tried to entice Mindy Anne to yoga Sunday with the promise of a Joe Versus the Volcano reference. (Joe is one of Mindy’s and my favorites – we like to sit down with Joe and a Jr. Mint shake and whoever else we can cajole or bully into watching it with us.) But not even that tempting prospect could tear her away from the project she was finishing up for work. Ah well. The retelling won’t be quite so profound, but here goes…

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the compressed, panicky feeling I get whenever I feel I don’t have enough time. (This happens, oh, all the time.) Trying to flip the coin, I based last week’s yoga class on the idea of creating spaciousness; specifically, lengthening and lifting the sides of the torso to create more space for the lungs. More space for the lungs means more room to breathe, which can do a lot to counter that panicky hyperventilating feeling of there’s-not-enough-time. In the course of thinking about spaciousness in the body, I was reminded of how yoga (or any other meditation practice) can also create spaciousness in the mind. By focusing for an hour on subtle movements in the body, by working and stretching muscles I barely remember once being friendly with, I often find my mind so caught up in the process that it loosens its white-knuckled grip on time and relaxes. I’m not rushing from pose to pose, and I’m not anxiously checking the clock to see how much longer? Not every yoga practice is this way, but the best ones are.

It struck me last week that I am often rushing from one thing to the next, even from one pleasurable pastime to another. It’s like going on a road trip out in the hill country. You expect it to be scenic, and it is, but inevitably someone (usually me) has to pee, and then you stop at a truck stop where the bathrooms stink and the food sucks and you can’t wait to get out of there and back to the scenery ASAP. In yoga, there are no truck stops. Every pose, every pause between poses, has the potential to be scenic. And maybe that’s the mindset that creates that spacious feeling that I crave. But how do you carry that mindset off the mat? It’s easier to find mind-space in a class for two reasons: first, in yoga, you’re only focusing on the body, and despite its complexity, the body is still just one thing; second, there’s a teacher guiding you through the focus points, telling you, “Notice this, now move this.” Off the mat, you’re faced with a barrage of images and media and traffic and co-workers and damn, if your cell phone isn’t ringing again! When there’s no teacher telling you to turn off the phone and slow down, it’s easier for the scenery to get lost in the truck stops. That’s one reason why yoga’s such great practice: start with something basic and familiar – the body – and slowly you learn how to bring the applications home with you.

How in god’s name is she going to tie this in with that ridiculous 1980’s Joe V. Volcano movie, you ask? Don’t mind if I do…

There’s a scene in Joe Versus the Volcano where Joe is stranded in the middle of the ocean. He’s dehydrated; he’s starting to hallucinate; he has no idea if he will be rescued. It’s the middle of the night, and the full moon is rising. It’s a gorgeous moon, huge, as big as the world. Joe stands up on the raft. He’s shaking. He’s looking at the moon with a look of rapt wonder on his face. All he says is, “I forgot how big…” That line gets me every time – I am always forgetting, always slipping into panic mode, always feeling almost-strangled by time constraints. And yoga is my reminder that my life, my mind, my body – all so much more spacious than I feel in the bad moments. I ended class with this suggestion – I’ll give it to you here, too: This week, when you feel that creeping never-enough-time feeling, come back to the last time your body felt spacious and open (maybe your last yoga class!), remind yourself that you create spaciousness in your life each time you make time for an activity you love (like yoga, or running on the trail, or agility w/ Izze, or playing music), then consider the possibility that maybe, just maybe, you forgot how big.