Just a Breath Away

I started going to yoga since my last post.  By that I mean I've gone twice.  However, I have great intentions about going regularly, or at least once a week.  Of course, I also have good intentions about blogging regularly, and we see how well that goes.....Anyway, I started going to yoga, because my mom kept going on and on about how much she loved it, what a great workout it was, and how calming she found the practice.  Therefore, I decided to improve on my own  sense of inner peace, which has lately been more of a sense of inner chaos with an ever-growing to-do list looming over my head.

My first yoga class was what I would like to classify as cardio-yoga.  While it was definitely not boot camp, kick-your-tail style cardio, I was seriously sweating by the end of the hour.  As much as I love a good workout, I didn't achieve that calming feeling I was hoping to find in my new yoga practice.  Instead, I found sore muscles the next day....this girl hadn't stretched in a while!  The following Thursday, I attended a restorative yoga class in the evening.  It had been a really, really long day, and I thought maybe this would be a way to turn around the negative attitude that had been growing throughout the afternoon.

Bingo! Restorative yoga did the trick.  It was a very small, very relaxed class, which was fantastic, but it was what the instructor said during the class that really helped me more than my less than perfect child's pose or downward dog.  Toward the end of class, she reminded us to keep our eyes closed and said, "Everything you need is only a breath away.  Courage, peace, patience; everything you need is only a breath away."  Talk about hearing just what I needed!  I have a tendency to get so caught up in all my thinking and list-making that I just increase my stress level twofold by narrowing my focus to all the plethora of tasks that need to be done.  I forget to breathe.

Today, I sat down to plan out my lessons for the year.  Staring me in the face were ten sheets of paper for the ten months of the year I have to plan out.  This task has been looming over me for about three weeks now, and I keep putting it off in hopes that it will complete itself.  "Peace is just a breath away, Jessica."  I took a deep breath and dove in.  I can happily report that the task is halfway done.

Now, I'm not dumb.  I know a simple breath can't fix every situation.  Were I to rear-end a car at a stoplight, I'm pretty positive I couldn't take a deep breath and avoid a traffic ticket and a disgruntled, angry person from the car in front of me.  However, it is a step toward changing my outlook on a situation.  When I feel overwhelmed or frustrated or angry or whatever, the easier option is to keep it all pent up inside, but I'm trying to learn to breathe.  I just have to remember that everything I need is just a breath away.