Balance is a funny word. Not only does it come into play with each individual posture (hello Standing Bow Pulling Pose or Dandayamana-Dhanurasana), but it is the essential ingredient as I travel from each day to day. As evidenced in yesterday's post, Day 11 was a disaster for me. As I tumbled down into the deepest and darkest of places I have seen in my practice yet, I opened my heart and took it all in, every piece, including the saving-grace starburst I ate in the lobby when I had to prematurely leave class.
What's interesting is that what I am about to share isn't a new concept. For every state of mind/being/physicality in the world there is an opposite. Without one, there is hardly the OTHER. For every day there is night, darkness there is light...and for every terrible, no-good, I have to leave the room RIGHT NOW, kind of yoga class, there is (thank god) an opposite.
And for me, that opposite arrived last night. Day 12, will forever be marked as my BEST yoga practice to date.
Maeghan (whom I had previously credited as Megan--apologies) was teaching, and once again offered her subtle yet transformative guidance that helped me reach farther than I knew I could. In doing so I learned many new things about myself and my body. The most important of which is surely how to truly LOCK my knee. Who knew it could go up and back even more than it had? Maeghan did, that's for sure.
With her expertise at the helm, and the temperature in the room just right (a steamy 105 degrees) everything seemed to go my way. Hallelujah! This is exactly what I needed after Monday, when I truly thought I could walk away from Bikram forever and NEVER EVER look back.
So what have I learned? To love BOTH types of days...because without failure, there is no success. I would like to tell the universe how thankful I am for Monday...because what I did not realize at the time, was that the struggle I was experiencing was simply preparing me to receive and appreciate my triumph last night.
Namaste
"Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm." ~Winston Churchill
Great ode to balance!
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