If you’ve been following along with this blog for a while, you might be familiar with my yoga adventures. For those of you who are new here, you’re in for a treat. Or, torture. Maybe both.
My yoga class has been on an extended pause. Partially due to the pandemic and now that the world is turning back to normal, class resumed tonight. I also discovered that my boobs have an evil plot to kill me. Well, at least that’s what it felt like. We started our practice tonight with a meditation lying on the floor. I was rushing in from work and feeling bloated from water I’d just gulped. As we began the meditation, I couldn’t entirely focus on my teacher’s voice when she was walking us through the meditation. We did a mental “scan” of our body and she asked us to consider how we felt, starting with our feet. I couldn’t fully participate because my boobs and their evil plans. I felt like they were in my throat, choking me from either side of my neck.
Then, the thought hit me. Regardless of my really good bra, my boobs were saggy enough to flop towards my neck. NECK. Did you read that? Neck. How could that be possible? Obviously, by this point I was imagining the possibility of swinging them around like flesh lassos. I was not following along with the mental body scan that was probably meant to help us relax and take a mental inventory of our physical state. Oh, I was taking inventory alright. I was focusing on maintaining my oxygen while wondering how gravity would be listed as my cause of death after being smothered by my boobs.
Luckily, I survived and we did a lot of stretching exercises. When we got to the deer pose, I had a tough time with my hips. My right side was tight but not near as bad as the left. My friend commented about how she was having a hard time with her bones. I said I was having a hard time with my bowel. As I pulled into the deer pose on the left, I felt like every ounce of available gas made its way suspiciously close to the outside of my body. I had a bad cramp in my hip and my leg. I couldn’t hold both the pose and hold the gas in. For everyone’s sake, I held the gas.
We did some type of full body circles and I felt really weird. It reminded me of my yoga practice pre-hysterectomy when I could feel the fibroids in my uterus when we would do certain poses. I told myself that it was my imaginauterus, my imaginary uterus. It was really most likely the large amount of gas that was continuing to build. But just the thought gave me the giggles and gave me a special set of exercises that I did for everyone else’s benefit.
We closed the class with another mental body “scan” while lying flat on the floor. I dreaded the attack my boobs would try to use against me. I didn’t need to be reminded how saggy my body has become over the last few years. But the closing of practice surprised me. I had loosened up enough that I wasn’t being attacked by evil boobs. I wasn’t even being attacked by evil thoughts about myself. For the first time in a long time, I felt like myself again. I felt like I released some of the tension that I tend to carry. I felt a spark of encouragement about getting my strength back. Not just my physical strength but also my mental strength and focus. When I was really consistent in my yoga practice, I felt like I was better able to balance my emotions. I thought about the first time I was able to do the camel pose. I asked my teacher to take a picture of it because when we first started, I didn’t think that I could ever do it. But I did it then and I’m going to do it again. Well, if the plotting, murderous boobs don’t attack.
Messpot Diaries 