Flexibility

I was just thinking about how excited I am about sharing my yoga with my husband at a one-day couples birth workshop that my yoga place holds. It will immerse him in the relaxing, groovy, non-judgmental environment that I get to experience every week.

Then I had this flashback to when I first started doing yoga at a university gym years ago. I didn't know it then, but I'm not very flexible physically. I've been this way all of my life even though I didn't realize it--I always thought that I just wasn't stretching as much as other kids. I was in gymnastics--I could do back bends and back flips, but I could never do the splits. Again, I just thought I wasn't stretching enough! Anyway, when I first started doing yoga at that university gym I wasn't very coordinated. Yoga is all about accepting one's limitations without judgment (so is psychotherapy) but I hadn't learned much about that then. After one early class I had an aquaintence (a visiting professor from New York City who had never driven a car) increduously ask me if I'd ever done yoga before that day. I had, at home, so I said, "Yes, why?" and she expressed surprise and lots of judgement about my (lack of) ability! It made me never want to do yoga in public again--but I'm more outgoing than that and try not to be dissuaded by what other people think of me.

Anyway, I was just thinking that flexibility is more than a state of body, it's a state of mind, especially when it comes to assessing other people. I need to remember this.