Trusting The Process Of Life-Headstand

For the past week, I have been using a 5 minute timer. One of the postures I have been staying in for this somewhat intense and extended duration of a holding is headstand. Headstand, or sirsasana, is known as the "King of all postures." It is one of the postures usually associated with a yoga practice. It is an inversion. It is mind clearing. It is quiet. When performed correctly, it is light and it is ease.

Headstand is a posture very dear to me. When I first began practicing yoga and even when I was in my first years of teaching yoga, I never imagined that I would be able to get into this pose. I had tried to get into it many times. Without a teacher instructing me. I couldn't do it. I found it scary. What if I fell? (This was before I understood that you almost always have to fall to learn something new and wonderful.)

I found my inability to kick up into headstand frustrating. I would kick up and kick up from downward dog but I could never catch my core or get my "tuck." This was not a pose I did naturally as a child. Other postures that required strength had come easy to me. But not this one. I began to make up familiar stories for why this pose would never happen. My first story is an Anne classic. "I am just too fat to go into this posture. Headstand is for all of the very thin willowy yogis of which I am not." Then I would tell myself that it was ok that I would never get into headstand, that I was completely happy without it. After all, I was able to get into many impressive postures such as wheel and split.

Yet, in my yoga, something was missing. At the time, I was dedicated to practicing the Ashtanga Series at least 4 times per week. Everytime I watched one of my fellow yogis go into headstand, I could feel something missing in my body. I longed to be able to turn upside down. To raise my legs up over my head. Everytime I watched my fellow yogis slow down, concentrate and kick up into the headstand, I felt it somewhere deep inside me. I felt the pose and I felt the absence of the pose at the same time. My body intuitively understood the strength, stillness and ease which is the essence of headstand. My body was remembering something ancient and sacred. A feeling of movement and body wisdom that was imprinted deeply within my understanding. An understanding that goes deeper than my rational mind.

On September 14, 2001, I was at the Puck building in NYC with 200 other Ashtangi yogi's. We were taking a full Series 1 Ashtanga class with Pattaboi Jois as our teacher. Willam Defoe was on a yoga mat directly behind me. I was in the front row. When the time came up to go into headstand, I peeked back at the remainder of the room from my downward dog. I looked beyond my feet to see 200 yogis go up effortlessly into headstand, from their mats. The twin towers had just fallen days before. It was still early, 7:30 in the morning. Everyone in this room needed this practice to deal with the sadness and the chaos of living in this world immediately following 9/11. We were all practicing together. No one used a wall. It was beautiful. I told myself in that moment, that I would learn this awesome pose. No excuses.

It took less than a year, after that day in NYC, of practicing diligently before I learned headstand. It is such a feeling of exhileration the first time you get it. I still feel exhilerated and there is still a moment of trust each time I kick up. I have fallen in this pose, many times. I may not have always landed gracefully but I have never broken.

This week I have practiced headstand everyday for 5 minutes and it still does not have the ease that it had prior to my birth of Sadie. I practiced this pose until I was 33 weeks pregnant. I gave up the pose when she was no longer breach and had turned herself around. At that time, I instinctively knew it was time to let headstand go as I did not want to risk my baby turning herself back to the breach position. Since Sadie's birth, finding my comfortable headstand has been a slow process. I have had to trust that with a regular practice, my yoga will come back. It might be new and different but I must trust that the body will remember. Headstand requires a strong connection to the abdominals and an openness in the shoulders. Strong abdominals and open shoulders are still not quite where they were prior to Sadie and I must be patient. In yoga, it is not the end result but the journey or the process where all the gifts are to be found.

This week I have practiced headstand and am able to hold this awesome pose for 5 minutes without leaving. I have felt her qualities in my body. I have felt calm and clear and inspired. I have felt gratitude for making a choice, to learn this elegant pose 5 years ago in that remarkable instant after 9/11. I feel gratitude for my body and being able to inhabit it as fully as possible. No stories of being inadequate to keep me from fulfilling my own dreams.