Learning to Exhale

It was February, 2011.  I was jacked up all the time: shaking, short of breath, heart pounding, stomach clenching.  I had lost too much weight and felt weak all the time.  I was hardly sleeping.  The doctors were no help. I was on my own.

I knew I needed to put myself into a relaxed state as much as possible.  I signed myself up for regular massages, went for long walks out in nature, and I found a website that offered yoga class videos for a subscription fee.   

I didn’t know much about yoga.  I had tried it maybe fifteen years before, buying a VHS tape or two.  But at that time I was just looking for a little exercise and the kind of yoga on those tapes was a slower pace than I was looking for.  That was the extent of my experience, and so I didn’t know what I was looking for, except that I had heard that yoga could help you relax.  

I tried a couple of videos, but they were difficult and way more exercise than I wanted or was capable of with this mysterious illness.  And then I discovered Yin Yoga.  There was a teacher on the platform named Bernie Clark who was a master of Yin, and I saved all of his classes to my favorites.  Yin Yoga is a super slow pace - the slowest - because the poses are long-held static postures, designed to get into the connective tissues.  Instead of working the muscles and creating energy, we were working tendons and ligaments in addition to deep muscular stretches, and we were on the floor the whole time.  Each pose is usually held for 3-5 minutes.  And during that time, Bernie would talk.  In his calming voice, he would talk to distract students from the intense sensations they felt while their tissues expanded, but also to educate us on what was happening physically, and how to manipulate the nervous system.  Specifically, with deep breathing exercises, we were activating the parasympathetic nervous system - the rest and digest  processes of the body.  It’s the opposite of the sympathetic nervous system, which controls the fight or flight response.  

I knew exactly what the fight or flight response was, because as he described it, it was like he was talking about me.  I felt daily like I was doing battle with my fight or flight response, and it had kicked my ass and flown me into a wall.  Repeatedly, all day, every day.

Deep, slow breathing exercises along with the stillness of the poses switched on my parasympathetic nervous system, which wasn’t switching on much as of late.  I was never tired.  Even though I wasn’t sleeping - I was emotionally exhausted, but not sleepy-tired.  And with that activation, sometimes in those classes, I would, at long last, nod off.  Finally, my body would be released from whatever this was that had me in its grip.  At least for a moment.

This skill helped me through some of the worst of times.  Often, I’d pop right back awake, so it wasn’t a permanent fix for the night - but it did provide minutes of intermittent relief in an otherwise miserable time.

Once I began to feel better, with my diet helping enormously, I moved on to other types of yoga and found that there were classes that even though there was much more movement and exercise, those things would actually aid the release of the muscles later.  I learned that in order to really relax, I had to activate muscles and move energy through, so that I could move tension out.  And there was so much tension in my beaten up body.  

Tension gets stuck in muscles and joints - and that was part of what caused so much of the pain.  (Turns out inflammation had lots to do with it as well).  But my yoga practice was working that tension out on a daily basis and making things bearable, and providing  a life raft when I didn’t know where else to turn.

I practiced every single day, sometimes twice a day.  As things got better, yoga became my sanctuary.  I had a room set aside just for it, and set it up to be a calming space - I cleared it of clutter, painted it a cooling pale green, and with just a few plants and decorations, my mat was always in the center of the floor.  Every day, I stepped on the mat, let everything else go, and just learned how to be present.  

Here.  Now.

It started as my life raft, then became my sanctuary. Years later, the most immense loss would again make yoga a necessity, just to get through.

At the end of each class, I lay in savasana (corpse pose, or final relaxation).  The practice:  done.  All hard work, all effort:  over.  On my back, feet flopped open to the sides, as wide as the yoga mat, arms stretched out, palms up.  There was nowhere to go, and nothing to do.  Each muscle relaxed, and those that didn’t, I told them to and they complied. Sinking.  All tension has been released - that is yoga’s gift.  

And then, on days when the remembering is the strongest, they come:  the tears.  They flow effortlessly, not with a sob, not with the scrunching of eyes, mouth, or anything else.  I lie, face expressionless, eyes filling and emptying.  The tears run down my temples, into my ears, onto the mat.  I can hear them as they drip.  

When the veil of tension is lifted, we are left with what is really inside.  We are given the gift of true self, and that self may be filled with something else:  joy, anger, sadness, or the very deepest grief.  

One day, I began to write. Yoga gave me relaxation, clarity, and that sense of true self. I poured it out onto the page. The writing gave me perspective, drew out the lessons, and made me feel grateful and wise I found peace in ink, and in asana. As the two practices combined, I started to understand what self-care really means.

It is protection. Of the little girl that is at my core, of my peace, of my health, and of my history.

It is preservation. Of my story, the stories of those that came before me, and all that I have learned.

It is legacy. However you may define it. For what else is there?