My Mind in Yoga

At the Shala, my lovely home away from home, I am often surrounded by the most dedicated, serious, talented yogis in town. While those practicing around me appear to have it all together, here is my confession—I am often a pathetic yogi! While it might look like I know what I am doing, let me share some of what goes on in my head during practice.

For the first fifteen minutes on my mat, I am generally thinking about how sore I am. I find myself wondering if my muscles can hold me up, soften, twist, or do whatever it is they are supposed to be doing. I am sure the folds I could do the day before didn’t happen, the arm balance I attempted was a fluke, and I will never reach my toes again. I push myself to just keep moving and breathing.

My concerns during the middle of practice are broad and embarrassing. While trying to focus on the postures, I am wondering how much longer the class will last, will I make it through hand-to-big-toe balance, do I need a pedicure, is my mat getting smelly, will I have to do headstand, and did I turn off my cell phone ringer.

As we work our way toward close-out, my attention shifts to wondering if we have ice cream at home or do I need to pick some up on the way home. That’s it: ice cream.

After all of this scattered, monkey-brained thinking, I finally come to savasana. When I was new to yoga, corpse pose was the greatest challenge of all. I heard that I should be quieting my brain, but for years, thoughts continued to zip around. I recently learned that having a consistent meditation is the one thing that quiets my mind, and have settled on a three steps I do each day in corpse pose.

First, I decide what was the best part of the past twenty four hours and focus on that with a sense of gratitude and joy.

Second, I determine what I really, really want from my life to find an intention for where I put my energy once I leave my mat.

Finally, I choose my mantra—a positive message that I need to repeat to myself to counter any anxiety that might bubble up during my day.

Calming my mind will always be the greatest struggle of my practice. But like all of you, I will keep doing my practice knowing all is coming. So try not to laugh the next time you see me in shoulder stand, even though you can assume one thing: I am thinking about ice cream.