My tryst with yoga began at the gym at my workplace in California. Returning to the laboratory six weeks after giving birth had not been easy. My body felt like a shapeless semi-deflated balloon. I dragged myself to work each day with sleep-deprived eyes that seemed permanently encrusted with sand and took naps at my desk when I thought no one was looking.
“It’s always easy to spot the new moms,” my colleague said with a wink and a smile, pointing to the tell-tale drool marks on my left shoulder.
My supportive boss, who pretended to look the other way when I was slumped in my chair, showed me a poster announcing the lunch-time yoga class. I was the only Indian woman (other than the instructor) in a class of about twenty, predominantly female, employees.
“You had to come to America to learn yoga?” smirked the woman on my right.
“I had to come here to be stressed enough to need it,” I replied haughtily.
My initiation into the ancient practice of yoga began on that tart note.
I invested in a yoga mat that year. In the two decades since that eventful first session, the mats have been replaced multiple times. The only thing that has stayed constant is my commitment to show up on the mat, several times a week, sometimes for a few minutes, other times for an hour.
Occasionally I lay out the mat and just sit, breathing, meditating, slowing down; not a passive giving up but an active giving in with a willingness to receive. Exactly like the writing practise that I cultivated shortly after my yoga initiation.
Every night, after my baby went to bed, I would sit with a Mead notebook and write about my day. As the demands on my time grew, there was a sense of urgency to capture my thoughts as I navigated the delicate balance between work and home.
All-consuming motherhood demanded all my attention but a soft voice tried to claim some ‘me-time’.
Often I would type straight into a Word document, trying to keep the noise of the keyboard down so as to not wake up the baby. Much of what I wrote were rants; far from being publication-worthy, they were not fit to be shown to anyone.
On the days I had nothing new to write, I opened up my drafts. I rewrote. Edited. Checked grammar, vocabulary, flow. Added or pruned as needed. Put it aside for another day. One day, I sent out a personal essay titled “Contractions and contradictions” to the San Jose Mercury News. To my great delight, they published it in the weekend newspaper.
Shortly after my debut as an amateur writer, I moved back to India. I took my notebooks and my yoga mat along. Settling into life in the country where I had been born and raised should have been easy, but I found out that both, the country and I, had changed in the fourteen years that I had been away.
Home was not the comfortable oasis that I had left behind, it was a roiling ocean in which I had to find an island of peace.
I practised yoga each morning. At night, I wrote. Everyday. When life as we know it undergoes an upheaval, it is best to start with something small. I found that focusing on one simple task each day grounded me. When my daily schedule was unpredictable, I had control over my morning yoga. And if the day turned out to be unusually stressful, I knew I could sit with my notebook at night, a simple ritual that anchored me.
Yoga and writing bookended my days and kept me sane.
As I watch my adult daughter who is now a trained yoga instructor, do scary inversions and arm balances, I look back at my younger self — the young, exhausted mother who showed up for her first yoga class and wonder if I have made any progress.
Despite my regular yoga practice, I am still unable to do a headstand. On the writing front, I haven’t become a bestselling author. But yoga has helped keep my body healthy and flexible. Just as my regular writing habit has enabled me to create a body of work.
The benefits of daily discipline outweigh the transient nature of outward success as measured by hits and trends.
A sturdy body and an enduring legacy can only be built from inside out.
From yoga I have learnt one lesson – it is more important to show up than show off. This philosophy continues to serve me well as a writer.
Originally published on Medium
Photo credit: Unsplash
“It is more important to show up than show off” – what an age to live by! Yes, nothing great was ever done without a high degree persistence, notwithstanding allusions to ‘inborn genius’. Personally, my short daily Yoga practice has also helped keep the body ticking along and the mind (hopefully) a bit calmer that it otherwise would be. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for stopping by and sharing your experience with yoga!