My yoga practice has been lagging. This lack of commitment coupled with my triumphant return to running has left me feeling creaky and tight. I haven’t been to my “home” studio for almost a month because I’ve been caught up in activities surrounding the end of classes and the start of my new job. One of my biggest struggles in yoga is remembering that the practice is mine and about me no matter where I go. I have a tendency to get attached pretty easily. I fall hard and fast and don’t like change.

Not only does this lack of flexibility not work in yoga, it doesn’t work in my life either. At work we’re outlining our personal, professional and health goals for the next 1, 5 and 10 years. I consider this a rather daunting task. I don’t know what I’m doing 15 minutes from now much less 10 years down the road. I think the rigidity of my life has left me feeling a little stagnant and is halting any moves I could and should be making toward the future. The biggest challenge I find in writing the goals is that I’m writing them as broken, tired (and let’s face it) terrified me and, as a result, am crafting my future from within the confines of how I see and feel right now. I’m not pushing myself to get what I really want. I feel like I’m writing down what I know I could achieve pretty easily.

So yesterday I went to a studio that’s relatively new to my practice and took a class with hands down one of the best instructors in the city. She was talking about how yoga doesn’t really start until we start to feel uncomfortable. When we want to fidget, release, fix our hair, scratch our heads, essentially run from the pose… that’s when the real yoga begins. “What good is a pose I already know how to do?” she asked. “It’s the one just beyond that I’m striving for.” So I guess where I am right now–uncomfortable, distracted and fidgety as all hell–is where life really begins.

In the class, we were practicing dancer with a strap. We don’t use straps at my studio so I set mine down and went into the beginner version of the pose as I know it. Safe, predictable, comfortable. The teacher walked by and said, “Try the full pose.” Having never tried it in my life I said, “I can’t.”

What’s cool about yoga teachers is they’ll never try to force a pose on you. So she walked away and left me to myself. When we got to the pose on the other leg an assistant had moved over to my mat. She asked if I was up for it and I decided to give it a try. What good is a pose I already know how to do, right? What would it look like to go one step further? The answer is the picture at the top of this page.

I’m excited about that picture and that pose. I’d never tried it because I never thought I could do it. What good does that do me? How many other doors have I closed on myself? I guess it’s time to find out.