Magic faceplants

Yesterday I had the loveliest practice at home, the type that touches a lot of my yoga buttons, why I love my practice:

• I can practice wherever and whenever I want to, no matter how I feel, what I look like (no dressing up needed).
• I can make it up as I go along, no planning required — all I need to do is listen and my body tells me where we’re going.
• I can choose to challenge myself or I can play it super-safe and keep it more restorative. Yesterday was really playful and experimental.
• I usually end up crying or laughing — my body expresses whichever emotion it needs to. Sometimes both!
• Time flies. I start with no expectations of what the practice will be and just keep moving through asanas until I can feel my attention going or my muscles starting to grip rather than support, and then it’s time to start winding down.
• I am so hungry afterwards, a proper good old-fashioned appetite after honest work. It’s such a basic life-thing and it feels so right.

Yesterday Hubby poked his head in to see if I was OK — he heard a lot of laughing drifting up from my mat. Faceplants — once I’m sure I haven’t actually broken my nose — make me laugh a lot! The ridiculousness of being a grown adult playing at this kind of stuff often strikes me as very funny. (I’m starting to figure out my side-crow…)

And yet it’s also serious stuff, right? Through all this breathing, stretching, twisting I was actually recognising some habitual patterns of behaviour in my life that aren’t doing much good any more. Big stuff.

And in time, I’ll work through them the same way I suppose. With some faceplants, some laughs, some tears. And a lot of work.

Ah, Yoga magic!