Psychological Warfare Yoga

Lately Since I was a tiny pudgy shy quiet indecisive little girl I have had the inability to successfully focus on one task at a time. Rather, my brain is like… well… this:

Now, despite my brain’s whereabouts in nearly twenty different directions, I will always get tasks accomplished. Yet, this is quite the annoyance as you may imagine. For example, I’m going to assume this is normal, but when I’m in yoga, you know, the class I’m supposed hone in on those focusing skills, these are some of the things I’m actually thinking about:

• what should I eat tonight? 
• what did I eat today?
• what did they mean when they said that? 
• Oh, I know this song! I like this song… ask about what it’s called later.
• Shiiii…oot. Did she say left or right? O.K. it was left. Are people looking at me?
• Nope. No one is looking at me. 
• I should blog about this 
• Of course… why did I paint my nails, but not my toenails? This is going to be complicated to fix.
• It’s so warm in here. I’m never leaving. It’s so cold outside.

Have you ever looked at someone and thought to yourself- there is nothing going on in their head… except this:

I am jealous of these people. Maybe I shouldn’t admit that. But what if I could just turn off my mind, and let it clap like a monkey playing a symbol. So, there I was, in yoga, planning my blog, when it hit me. Turn it off.  This week I made a mental goal with myself- try to be in the present. Meaning, don’t allow yourself to mentally wander off to all of your other obligations (like red meat or chicken). Stay focused on tasks at hand. Be in the moment rather than the obsessing over the past or worrying about the future. Ok, bring it on Monday!

Well, let’s talk about Monday.

On Monday night, my yoga partner and I went to our usual nightly class. All was right in the world, and my symbol playing monkey was a go. Only this wasn’t going to be a typical Monday night yoga session.

Do you remember when you were a student and a substitute teacher was called in for the day?! Yoga on Monday was like that, only worse, because it was a room packed full of adults and there was a substitute teacher. By the time a cell phone went off for a third time, and it was answered in class, I felt like this:

On the car ride home, Jess was not too pleased. We were there to mentally cleanse, but instead, walked out full of angst. I thought the man preparing for lamaze was hilarious, she did not. Inspired by her fury, my dear friend wrote. And she sent it to me. Below are my top ten favorite stressful yoga moments from her list.

Yoga is Stressful…

1. When you forget to breathe
2. When you make excuses
3. When you feel bad for yourself
4. When you pay more attention to what others are doing
5. When you tell youself that you can’t
6. When you want to slap the mouth breather near you
7. When you don’t feel challenged
8. When you feel overly challenged
9. When you ignore your goals
10. When you don’t set intentions

And how can I forget my two personal favorites:

1. When you have to pee
2. When it’s so hot your believe your skin is melting

She wrote:

I have more good memories and lessons that I have learned from yoga than I do bad. But this list should be reflected upon to remind myself that sometimes I am ridiculous. I am human. 

After she sent me the list we laughed and were able to reflect on the trivial nature of one unfortunate class. And that’s all it was. She and I headed back to schedule on Wednesday and it was beautiful, amazing, peaceful, and I was floating on cloud nine, like a person that only has one thing going on in their head. A monkey playing a symbol. Mission accomplished.

I would also like to add that when I typed into google: distractions in yoga this came up:

Can I think this is hilarious?

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