“I have a confession to make . . .” my substitute yoga teacher said last week at the beginning of class. Her tight face admitted guilt, matching her sheepish eyes. “My kids have been home on break and . . . I haven’t practiced yoga all week. Until this morning, when I came to my mat to prepare for this class.” Her face relaxed as her eyes grew wide open. “Connecting to my practice was refreshing and grounding. I felt more aware, present, even calmer . . . happier.”
In previous blog posts, I talked a lot about connecting and in my most recent post, how the busyness of the holidays pushed its way into my routine and displaced time I had set aside for writing. My writing took a backseat and efforts to stay current with social media, reading all things memoir, book publishing, book promotion, disconnected from my attention. Whenever we leave our practice of doing anything where we felt connected, we find ourselves uneasy, unsure, restless perhaps.
Now that the holidays are over, and the new year is here, my writing has found a renewed place. My connection to that which makes me feel calmer, happier, has returned.
For me, writing is a practice like yoga. Resuming writing is like picking up where I left off with an old friend. Perhaps the same is true when returning to my mat after an absence. The connection with my writing friend and with myself on the mat is even stronger. With each visit to the paper (or computer screen!) or mat, I return to a place where I don’t note just the distance of the absence, but see and feel how far I’ve come, where I stand in the present.
Connections put the disconnection in our rear view mirrors, granting us growth spurts to see just how much more of ourselves we have discovered.
There’s something about reconnecting to that which you know, the familiar. Connecting feels like home. We are at home with ourselves.
What are some of your practices? How did you feel connecting to them after any length of absence?
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