A 100 Day Experiment: Yoga, Meditation & Journalling - Week 5

Standing in Savasana

At the end of my daily yoga practice I lay on my back, fully conscious, yet relaxed.

(explained in more detail here)

I am instructed to scan my body to look for any place I am still "gripping" and to take the next couple of breaths from that area.

The idea of standing in savasana, taking this feeling of being fully awake and relaxed, into my daily life began this week as I had several dreams rooted in anxiety. The symbolism wasn't lost on anyone who knows me and what I'm going through: shuffling along a narrow ledge with my back against a sheer rocky cliff or running in the fast lane of the freeway...

Being awake in my body requires me to acknowledge and honor my feelings. It's time to release old patterns and beliefs that are no longer serving me.  It's also time to recognize the pain I am now feeling and to work towards the healing to come.

My heart is broken. 

This heartbreak is not a one and done event - it is a process.

One Saturday morning, just over a year ago, my husband of 20 years told me he didn't want to be married to me anymore. This came rushing out of him in a long exhale that left him visibly relieved and lighter. The weight of the decision he'd struggled with, thought long and hard about, without a word to me, left me stunned and broken.

This man that I thought was my other half, my person, was opting out. It's taken me quite a while to fully integrate the fact that all the future imagining I'd been doing that included him, us, was not shared. His future imaginings not only didn't include me but includes a new someone that he hasn't met yet.

Due to complicated circumstances (aren't they always?) I have been required to make decisions that go against the last twenty years of my priorities.

I'm finding myself having to say no, over and over again. To withdraw my support, emotionally and financially as it becomes detrimental to keep extending myself. This doesn't feel good at all. It feels wrong, yet I know it's necessary. 

I stand, awake and breathing, scanning my body and mind for any place I am still gripping and take the next couple of breaths from that area.