I’m not feeling myself these days.  Wait.  That’s not entirely true.  I feel very much like myself when I’m in the studio practicing asana with a group of students.  That’s where I feel fully present.  In the moment.  At ease.  Loving and loved.

I’m very grateful, therefore, that in a few hours I’ll be in the studio teaching my facilitated Yin workshop, “Giving and Receiving.”  I’ve been looking forward to this workshop from the moment it was added to the Samyama schedule.

I am looking forward to it for all the right reasons.  It’s another opportunity to share the benefits of a quiet and soulful practice.  Plus partnered yin – an offshoot of traditional yin practice that asks two individuals to work as one – builds on a foundation of open trust.  Melting into the asana with your partner’s support explores ideas of control and release, surrender and outcome.

Meanwhile, outside of the studio, I have a stranglehold on control and outcome.  There’s little room for surrender and release.  I am preparing to move into my new home and have a clear image in my mind of how this should unfold.  But the image in my mind – the story I’m telling myself of how this should all happen – is not congruent with reality.  I’m surrounded by what I believe is chaos. My soft edges have begun to harden into corners.  I’ve lost my ability to roll.  I’ve lost my practice.

It doesn’t matter that the hurdles in front of me are joyful pursuits.  It doesn’t matter that the end-result, when the chaos around me clears and the dust settles, will be a home of my own.

I am desperate to be finished so that I can return to being the woman who remembers that this mad pursuit is like running a race with ghosts.  These walls that I call mine, this carpet, that furniture – these are all ghosts that will one day crumble to dust.  Yet I am desperate for the illusion of warmth and safety to wrap itself around me. I am desperate to wake each morning with the man I love snoring beside me. Desperate for a fresh cup of coffee and the latest Economist on a quiet Sunday.  I am desperate and I am in this race so that I can have the story I’ve told myself but there is no traction, my feet spin but I cannot move.

These cravings have filled the space once held by my practice.

Wanting to shape the future I see for myself is not a bad thing.  Locking in the trajectory of my future without accounting for all the variables that make life interesting is.  I want a home.  But if I’m ever to find it I need to surrender.  I need to loosen the grip I have on the outcome I see in my mind’s eye.  I need to soften my hard edges and learn to roll.