Relaxing Into Resistance

“I’m tired of fighting with my body.”

I was in my early thirties when I said it to a yoga teacher on the phone. I hadn’t even started taking classes yet. I was simply trying to explain why I thought yoga might be something I needed.

She stopped me. “That’s a powerful statement.”

At the time, I hadn’t meant it to be. It was simply true.

I never followed through on that first call. It took me another twenty years to understand what I had already known: I needed a different relationship with my body. I finally began practicing yoga about ten years ago.

I spent my twenties, thirties and forties trying to whip my body into shape by pushing it through exercise routines that did as much harm as good. Stretching didn’t feel particularly good, and it took time away from the endorphin hit I was in a hurry to get. And I punished my body in order to get it.

I am not naturally flexible. But yoga has taught me to focus on my own journey and not compare it to anyone else’s. My Down Dog may not be as elegant, and my Pigeon pose may never reach the level of my neighbor’s. But it’s always better by the end of class than it was at the beginning. That is the measure I use now.

When the alarm goes off on a Sunday morning, sometimes I would rather roll over and sleep for another hour. Sometimes it is just inertia, in which case, I push through and make the effort. But I have learned that not all resistance is the same. Pain or fatigue says maybe today is not the day. And that’s ok. Yoga has taught me to listen to my body.

Today’s class was tougher than usual. I haven’t been exercising regularly lately. But yoga has taught me to relax into resistance when I meet it. My body and I get along much better when we look out for one another. When resistance comes, I hold the pose gently, but consistently. Midway through the pose, the resistance relaxes. And then all feels good again. I have learned that powering through is not always the answer. Sometimes the right approach is just to stay the course: not to force, not to retreat, but to stay present long enough for something to soften. This works elsewhere, too.

I am never going to teach yoga. I once said as much to my ex-husband, who had watched me struggle my way through enough poses to know my limitations. “Well…you could,” he said, “But you would have to say, ‘This is what it’s supposed to look like.”

He was very funny, my ex-husband. He was not wrong.

I will never be as physically flexible as I would like to be. But my body and I are friends now, and we’re both better off for it. And I have become far more flexible in ways I had not anticipated. I’ve learned that sometimes I need to push through, but sometimes I just need to listen and attend, and stay the course. Life keeps giving me plenty of opportunities to put this into practice.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.