Saturday, January 29, 2011

Floating and thinking.

A good few years ago now, I was very devoted to attending yoga classes. At one stage I even had all the paperwork ready to begin the yoga teacher training course. But life got filled up with many other things and although I have practiced on and off it hasn't been consistent. I started this new year enthusiastically trying to do a little each morning and while it is often only 5 minutes and sometimes ends with a little one jumping on top of me, it feels good to stretch and begin to reverse my stiff and hunched posture that has started to set in after cradling babies and doing not much more than general household chores and strolls to the supermarket for the last 3 years.

When I first began doing yoga, I was purely interested in the physical benefits and didn't realize how good it would be for the mind as well. This is one of the things I have missed most I think. Today, I spent some time in my parent's swimming pool and after a few laps, discovering how very unfit I am, I simply lay back on the floating foam tubes that we had been playing with earlier and just gazed up at the big blue sky. There was a tall gum tree in the neighbours backyard and the sun was shining on the white branches and I was just looking at the shapes the leaves were making as they were clumped together. Later, my husband commented to me that floating had been good thinking time and it had been. And for me it was also a short time to quiten my mind from everything it is filled with. And it felt good. It reminded me we need to take that time out even if it is only short. So while the weather is warm I hope to do more floating and thinking and then thinking nothing at all...

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