After finishing my 21-day Yoga Challenge, and writing about wanting it to be habit-forming.... a funny thing happened.... I actually WANTED my body to get that lovely stretching, peaceful and relaxed feeling. After a great workout, I have this sensation when returning to back to a sitting pose of feeling overall lightness, of the tension draining out from my forehead all the way down. Of a sense of being so relaxed and bouyant that it almost feels my arms will float right off my knees. I think I'm sort of addicted to that feeling!
Granted, there are far worse things to be addicted to. Currently some of my other favorite addictions include cups of steaming hot chocolate (with mini-marshmallows, OF COURSE) after coming home with chilled fingers from the barn, smelling of horses, hay and leather. I'm also deliciously hooked on raw almonds. I read that they're even better for you soaked (more easily digested by your system, I think it said) but I love that crunch as you bite them, and I'm also particularly partial to Junior Mints. I can resist other things that beckon my sweet tooth, but those are my Achilles Heel....
So being addicted to yoga (coffee is not an addiction, it is NECESSARY for continued function!) is fairly harmless, all things considered, and certainly better for my body than those decadently smooth yet sensuous chocolate minty discs of greatness in that little cardboard box........
Anyway, back to the topic (not chocolate and mint together!) at hand, yoga just DOES something for me in a way that none of my other activities do. Not running! Of course I love crossing the finish line - okay, no... wait. I love about 10 minutes AFTER crossing the finish line when my heart stops operating at hummingbird rates, my face begins to resemble a face and not a Russian beet imminently destined for borscht, and my breathing actually enables me to talk again, instead of half gasp and mostly gesture at the lovely people who always seem to want to talk to me right afterwards, like directing me out of the path of other runners finishing, telling me not to puke in the grass (I haven't yet!) or other mundane things like returning my chip timer or turning in my race tags. LOL!!!!No, no runner's high for me, though I do get the "OMG I survived that race" post-run high... that typically lasts until I check race results online..........
Not in martial arts - sure you have the I-did-such-a-great-workout-I'm-too-sore-to-even-lift-my-bag-so-I'll-just-drag-it-out-of-the-gym days where you're sure your limbs may literally disconnect themselves from the rest of you in protest for inhumane treatment and unfavorable working conditions which you have repeatedly subjected them to, and yet you still seem to be grinning from ear-to-ear and proudly displaying your bruises (we dubbed them "kickies") to anyone and everyone who will look at them. Sure I get a high out of kicking well, winning a trophy, taking home the gold medal or finally getting that tricky board break (well, in the days when I COULD break), but it's still not the same as yoga. Those unassisted pullups at the gym had me soaring, but it's STILL not the same...
Even as wonderful and exuberant as I feel after an AWESOME ride with my horses, sailing over jumps, getting that tricky dressage maneuver, or having that "ah ha!" moment while training a young horse (or even re-training an older one!) still don't leave me with *quite* the same feeling as that final resting pose in Savasana - somehow differing from just lying down - which while comfortable, can't do the same thing as rewarding my body for the work I've done in my practice with those few moments of rest at the end, letting my body absorb the hard work and truly come to stillness.
I saw this awesome shirt that says "I'm only in it for Savasana." with a stick figure reclined on a yoga mat, and at the time I chuckled, but I realized how absolutely true it is for me. Those last final moments of tension just slip-sliding away - tension I didn't even know I had, stress that was bunched around my eyes, straining across my forehead, clenching itself into my jaw, squeezing up the corners of my eyes, or embedding itself in the base of my tongue and throat - all just ease and release, and I become a centered, quiet (for me....) and effervescent individual, relaxed but yet also invigorated and ready for whatever life has in store for me next. For those few moments no grocery lists, overdue bills, horse hooves needing a farrier appointment, computer program glitches, bank balances, car mystery "clinks & clunks" or other outside-world invasions are allowed to permit that little bubble of peace right over the top of me on my sticky mat.
And there's no cheating. You can't hurry up and just lie down on your mat and get the same effect - you have to actually put the work in first to earn that sweet sweet reward afterwards. Sure, you may catch 40 winks, but that scalp-tingling, shoulder-floating, super stretchy well-circulated feeling doesn't come to me without the rhythmic breathing, flowing through poses, activating my body and disconnecting my brain (temporarily!)
So tonight, finding myself drawn once again to the purple sticky mat purposefully left out in my way so that it is there, drawing me with its promise of feeling infinitely better, it calls me away.
Delightfully so! This is one addiction I shall indulge as much as possible!
Namaste!
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