Out of desperation to soothe my aching body after a nine hour day in retail, I found myself on a yoga mat, in my kitchen, with Jillian Michaels' Yoga Melt Down prompting me from my computer. My body aches from being on my feet now that I work a few days each week at Anthropologie, and its almost as if my extremities are relearning how to function in their new (and fun!) environment.
Desperation brought out from a hurting back and throbbing feet is what drew me to yoga. I tried it one night after a Saturday working all day, and was amazed at how much better I felt. Jillian Michaels made me do sun salutations and warrior poses until I felt stronger, looser, and relaxed. My friends have raved about their yoga experiences for years, as I'm sure some of you have similar enthusiasm about it. Yet me? I've never jumped on that band wagon. I love swimming, and running, and turbo kick, and hot baths for relaxing. But yoga? I had never really known the real likes of it, until Jillian, in the kitchen, with the computer screen, whipped me into yoga lovin' shape. I always found myself looking at yoga clothing, yet did I even really know what my practice was? Not at all. I'm wobbly, inflexible and loose my barring when upside down (or so I thought). I mean, yoga, me? I can't even cartwheel! All things that have kept me away for so long. Only playing with the idea of yoga on a conceptual basis, and never truly going to a class, or trying it from home. But this week, because of desperation, I was brought to yoga and finally experienced what everyone is talking about.
The same can be so true when it comes to prayer. People talk about how God made the impossible, possible. How seeking out solitude and time praying is truly how you grow in your relationship with God. Yet, how easy it is to just talk about it, play with the idea of prayer conceptually, yet never truly experience it. Like me. With yoga. Shauna Niequist writes about yoga and prayer in one of her essays in Cold Tangerines. I read this little part in her book today, and not only was the timing of this piece so significant in my life right now, but she puts it in perspective perfectly:
"Prayer, in my life, is similar [to yoga]. If you ask me about prayer, I have the books, the journals, and a few transcendent experiences to report from the last decade, lots of good reasons why every person should do it, and not a tone of extremely current experiences rushing to mind. I believe in it, conceptually. I feel better when I do it….But something has to get you back to yoga, and something has to get you back to prayer, and in my experience the surest thing in either case is desperation. I wait until my life has become so completely unlivable and the person I am has become so deeply unmoored from reality and hope and goodness, that I break down and pray….Prayer heals all the muscles that I've been clenching for a long time, while I'm holding it together, gritting my teeth, waiting for impact. Prayer, like yoga, like singing, brings soft from hard, pliant from brittle, possible from impossible, warm from cold, breath from breathless. And no matter what gets you there, it is better to be there than not." -Shauna Niequist, Cold Tangerines: Prayer and Yoga
Desperation is what brought me to yoga. Now I know I waited too long to meet myself on the mat. I wish I had started sooner, as I feel amazing. I wish I hadn't underestimated my strength, assuming I'd fail because of my inflexible body, or my lack of practice. Like Shauna writes, prayer and yoga are so much the same in this way: for me, I avoid prayer at times because of my wobbly words and inability to see hope, believe in the impossible, or because of my lack of practice. For yoga, it took a desperation to bring me to it. An aching body, looking for respite. Do I want to wait for desperation to bring me to prayer, too? Absolutely not. Desperation is bound to bring me to prayer, but I don't want that to be my only way of getting there. Just like an aching body brought me to yoga, as it will continue to, I'm sure, I want to meet the mat regularly: because I know its good. I want to meet my God regularly: because I know its the best thing I can do for my body (for my life!). I want to reap the benefits of a prayerful life now, not wishing that I had started sooner--because a prayerful life, like yoga, leaves you raving about it, right?
photo via Pinterest
