Building eggshells

The last week has been all about the rebirth, I started he new job on Monday, having had a rather miserable weekend where Sunday was a bit of a misery fest. Then monday new job, which at least let me start the begining, the week has been quiet as anything, just induction and then in fact two days off as the job really begins next week.

I have felt that I have almost been repairing my egg shell so to speak emotionally, as the previous week I was like a egg with the shell all ripped off, then slowly I have been putting a little shell back in place. I gave him some deadlines about removing his stuff from the flat, which helped as every time he came it was like a piece of me being ripped out which was unbearable, although I do now have to return to the flat tonight where he has removed all of his stuff, which I know will be upsetting. It still feels a little unreal that six years of your life can end so finally and so quickly, just two months ago and I was totally oblivious to this, as I walked home from work pondering when we should have a baby together and then, bang that future is all over, no longer exists and a new one must be forged.

I have been looking at flats this week as I want to move away from the current one as soon as the contract is up as the landlady is too unreasonable, I’m back to thinking about buying again, at least now I just have to decide if I like it which is a one up from having to try and make mutual decisions with someone who never takes responsiblity for anything….

On the yoga front I really felt yesterday that I was ready emotionally to open my heart but then managed to injure my right leg on Friday falling betwen the train and the platform, it was so painful at the time I was left in tears, and thought I would faint wihh the pain, I now have a calf which is more bruise that calf down the front, so have put off the return to practice until tomorrow, when I will go very slowly and see where I am.

Yet more maelstrom

Well last Saturday, it was over 6 1/2 years, and pop all gone.
I have just been drawing in my horns over the last week. I havn’t made yoga, of for two reasons I think, firstly that I have been sleeping very badly and the chance to grab a couple of hours when I do get to sleep at about 4.30 is too enticing, then I think that I am in some way avoiding opeing my heart to, the heart opening that yoga entails seems to risky. I am still in the physical pain of the heart break, with a nagging pain at the bottom of the ribs, which feels like it come from the heart chakra, that is dragging me down.

I am hoping over the next week that I will be able to get the sleeping a bit more sorted and begin to get to yoga.

It has been a week of endings, my job ended on Friday and the new one starts on Monday, the Msc was handed in a week ago, now the relationship too.

Also the landlady in the flat has turned out to be rather unreasonable…

So it all feels at sea, but in a funny way, so much at sea that it is ripe for a rebirth.

Bliss

Today was pretty much as a practice should be.
I just missed the chant due to an errant circle line train and arrived, chanted myself and just got going.

The shala was quiet-ish, there were still some empty spots until about 6.30ish which is quiet these days and seems to make the energy sing more for me, there is something about a feeling of disgruntlement I get from those who have to wait, I am always unsure if it is really from them although I always put it on to them, anyway today it was absent.

I have been concentrating mainly on the bandhas recently in practice it seems to have come down to that at present for some reason, so I was trying to keep the mind there and then to keep the driste, which I kind of manage although I should manage better on this as I am sure that could be better perhaps looking up the driste would be a start as I am not actually sure I really know it for all of the poses but just guess and hope for the best. I do find that when I get to practice facing the wall things are better, where as when I have people in front of me (like at the world tour things are more drifty).

The poses sang by I am sure some were difficult and the Janusirasana’s were having a bad day but I was put in Mari D on the good side reasonably easily, it feels a bit like when I was just getting Mari B on that side two years ago in process, interestingly and not really like getting Mari C where there was a feeling of no progress for two years and then wham, all of a sudden out of the blue, I could do it…. Although there is an alchemic feeling about all asana, once you have done it once then somehow the possibility you can do it is there, I don’t really mean being put in to it here but getting yourself in, there is a difference there.

No yoga

Well cancelled by me due to hideous hangover post hen do, followed by a huge sugar craving all day, probably induced by the dead sensible decision that I would eat a pack of revels for breakfast as that would Definately cure the hangover…..
…. Tomorrow I am so back on the protein wagon.

It never rains but it pours…

Well in the plumbing world, I hit a further rock bottom as I received a message from the plumber that I could not use the bathroom, 1515 just before an important meeting so at this point thought sod it and booked a hotel for the night there is only so much I can take here…..

Today the bathroom seems back on track and I am off to a hen night, bit nervous as I have never been to one before…

Catching up

Well I have been having the emotional rollercoaster of my life here, and then the bathroom leak treatment goes and means the bathroom needs ripping out, so there I am during Sharaths workshop, my big treat for not going to Italy with the BF. And I am an itinerant around all who I can cadge a room and a bath from.

All of this lead to a lack of blogging action…..

Although I can report that I am now home and hopeful that the plumber will finish in the not to distant future, well one can hope……

So Sharaths workshop…

Well I found it totally exhausting, think that that might have been the lack of sleep from all of the different beds that I was sleeping in that week and the chronic insomnia from the emotional stuff that is besetting my life right now.

So what was there, while I am currently practicing up to Navasana (with really no hope at Mari D, lets face it), so I stopped myself after Navasana, then Sharath comes round and tells me to just try at all the asana, there was I wanting to be good and no it seems what goes on tour stays on tour, that is full primary for everyone…. Seems the second series lot did not get the same deal and were stopped right left and centre

So I was exhausted by it all really, suddenly to go from half primary to full is some jump. I was having to guess about the poses after navasana, good thing that it was counted as I would have had no chance otherwise as I have no idea about the second half of primary and really feel that for the next few years I will really have no need to if you think that I spent 2 years at Marychasana C, then how long at Marychasana D, I dread to think….

I didn’t really notice huge things in the whole practice, led is tiring, day after day, but any vinyasa that I had been doing wrong had been corrected in Mysore earlier in the year and this seems to have stuck. I had got used to the wait until you are told bit and this seemed to come easily this time, just hanging out in chataranga for ever…

You do find out in the led classes where you cheat and don’t like handing out though which was a good exercise in itself, so although I knew that I didn’t like revolved trikonasana, and revolved utthita trikonasana. I found actually I also don’t hang out long enough in the trikonasana and utthita trikonasana either.

I was also wobble central in Utthita Hasta Padangusthasana , no surprise there, I think part of this was the fact that the hall was a lot colder than the shala and my hamstrings felt this as I also noted that my forward bends were more restricted than usual in the week, but back at the Shala this week if anything they are looser than they were before the week, and I am able to put my forehead to my shins in paschimottasana more consistently which I could only do occasionally before this.

As an aside from the workshop over the last few weeks I have been working on ensuring that I engage bandhas in every pose, as this was lacking especially in seated poses, I have been finding that especially in the forward bends this makes a huge difference and brings me forward quite a bit for no extra effort, which is interesting in it’s self, I am now trying to do the same approach in the Marychasanas but am finding this more difficult as the pose is more difficult to hold, I am not sure that I have yet been able to use the bandhas to help with the twists although I think that they must be useful in someway, I just haven’t found it yet.

Back to the workshop, there really is something about the collective energy of practicing together and the nice bits of being able to go for coffee with yogis and talk yoga each day, go to conference hear more yoga, it really is a little taste of Mysore in it’s own way

Given all the maelstrom

So given all the pain any intensity of my current position, yoga should be going shit too huh, well no, progress is being made much to my surprise…

In all of this, on Friday H bound me in Mari D for the first time ever (the easy side quelle surprise) but the intensity of everything else has tempered the pleasure from this, although it seems to be holding through 3 practices so no fluke!

I am of the firm view that the right side is a not in this lifetime pose but I guess we will see, given that it took me two and a half years of mysore (ok well six months, then a year of not so much then another year to be more truthful) to get Mari C self bound. I am not expecting miracles in Mari D here, if I can self bind the good side in a year then I think that would be good progress, ditto with any one ever putting me in to the difficult side, although I would finger H as the most likely suspect, he does have this uncanny knack of knowing when it can be done and going for it, he doesn’t try and fail much.

I am not sure what has brought about this change, I became properly vegetarian in the middle of June, maybe maybe, it’s difficult to assess the changes, I also have lost some weight although that is more recent the pig flu appeared to remove about 3kg which have not reappeared. And the changes in Mari C happened before I had the flu any way.

I am going to see a nutritionist tomorrow, specially recommended as not being nuts as I have a BIG BIG fear of nuts nutritionists…. But I will be interested in what she has to say as I know my diet can be less than ideal, and my ability to resist temptation (coffee cake) is limited to say the least.

Must now return to the Msc, which I am currently doing at work, good thing I am leaving in five weeks so only minimal guilt….. and no risk of being fired….

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Wednesday

Interesting practice this morning, it was the first since Sunday as I have been having insomnia issues getting to sleep about 3.30am and having no stomach for the alarm at five. Last night I woke at four and didn’t sleep so crawled to practice, rather wishing that I could have a refreshing sleep. It really was a breath and bhandas kind of day, just focus focus focus which held until the juansirasana b which is about as usual these days. Then my focus seems to fade somewhat, it really is a place I need to work on. The mari’s are still a struggle and I feel unsure if I should be doing the poses that the sub gave me now the main teacher is back as he has not given them to me, think it might be best to be upfront with him here as I as not so attatches right now and he does have a habit of not saying sometimes, and I do have an attachment to seeing him as my teacher, more than to the poses I think, so opening the option to him might be the best way.