Day 26-Meet yourself right where you are

It is easy for me to get distracted by the day to day business of running two studios and a yoga teacher training program. Right now, we have a few issues going on with some teachers and some different issues going on with some of our clients. This is not unusual. There is always something to handle, some piece of a relationship or part of a building that needs repair. In any work situation, I ask myelf, "Do I confront these situations or do I let it go and see what happens? Am I handling these problems in a way that is best for the studio as a whole? Can I let these situations not be handled and a better solution might come up then the one I am first inclined to react with? These are lines of thinking that I could easily get tangled up in..... I have let myself get tangled up in. When distractible events or situations are going down at the studios, I can get a little lost from myself and my family. My attention span for anything other that my business becomes minimal. I meet the lowest common denominator for my own self needs and I barely pay attention to the needs of my family or my friends. The needs of the business become all consuming.

Fortunately, I am learning.......Day after day, I have to set boundaries up for myself to stay present with my own needs as a women, wife, mother, daughter, and friend. I am a slow learner, yet once I get something- I master it. I am starting to get it. Boundaries matter. I am learning to let go of the studios and let myself drop into the other elements of my life so that I am not completely swallowed up by the details of running a business. Details that will always be there tomorrow. Similiar to laundry.

This past week I set the intention in my practice to allow my yoga to meet me exactly where I am in the moment. Instead of trying to contol my yoga practice, I would become open to tuning in and listenting to my body and letting my yoga practice be more intuitive and spontaneous. Trusting that the poses I found myself taking on each morning were exactly the ones I needed.
My biggest fear was that my yoga practice might become too soft and that I might lose a yoga pose that is dear to me. Such as bow or side crow.......

Friday night, I looked over at my 11year old daughter Emily in my passenger seat. I was driving her somewhere and her presence gave me reason to pause. I couldn't stop looking at her, taking her in. If I could have eaten her up in that moment, I would have. Sometimes I let myself get too busy to see those that matter the most. This Friday, for reasons that I cannot quiet identify, I looked over and I saw her. I mean I truly saw who she was, her lovliness, her absolute beauty that came from somewhere vast and open. I saw her vulnerability and I felt her strength. She was and is magnificent.

It won't be long before her absolute trust in me is gone for a while. Not just me, but maybe even the world in general. In my opinion, our daughters ( and us when we were this age) get far too many messages that they are just a body, a barbie doll to be clothed, a sex object. All of these messages begin to register right around the time our daughters are getting their periods. This is the time that many girls, for the first time, experience depression and hopelessness, anger and self-esteem issues. Eating disorders, body image disorders, and god knows what else. They are on the cusp of new and raw emotions coupled with the realization that society's values are askew and, unless they are sexually attractive, our daughters are rendered powerless.

I want to hold my daughter steady. I want her to know the truth of who she is. I want her to know that she is talented, kind, courageous and wise. Messages will bombard her telling her otherwise. I want to keep her safe from the world and its oppression of women. But I know I can't keep her safely in my sight at all times. I am going to have to let her go. She is going to need to individuate and learn how to be in this world without me holding her hand or suffocating her.

At a party on Saturday night, a female friend of mine put it this way: "As a mother, we need to be like a swimming pool. We need to have strong sides so that when our daughters need to kick off of us, we are there to support that." The message comes to me again......Boundaries matter.
A strong container does matter as well. As a mother-my body image, my sense of self, my own identity needs to be strong. But I also feel it is important to be soft and yielding as well. Isn't this the feminine aspect that is so much needed to balance out our patriarchal society? Trust in the qualities of patience and love and tenderness. This brings me back to my practice this week of letting the yoga meet me exactly where I am in the moment. In these moments I need a bit of folding inward and letting my love flow outward. I am a rag doll, forward fold, an exhale. I am attracted to the poses that reveal the surrender. Soon I am to surrender to the emergence of my daughter as a teenager with more autonomy in this oftentimes harsh and careless world but it will not be without offering my own self as the container to which she can return to for both strength and comfort. I ask that nothing keeps me away from that.