Working with Blocks with Christina: Wailea Yoga Shala, Wailea, HI: April 17, 2018
The post-Carson City path awaits. A long barefoot beach walk and two yoga classes helped remove the block to seeing the infinite blessings in my life and journey forward into my wildest dreams ahead. Maui is my soul home and I'm so super grateful to be here.
It’s so nice to be home in Maui. I admit that's a bit of a forced statement. Not that I don't own a home here, I do. Not that I consider Maui my soul home, I do. Not that I don't love it here with all my heart. I certainly do.
I feel a wave of unworthiness when I say it. Part of me is strung out on the lethal and life-struggling drug of dishonor. So I'm going to say it right here: who am I without my badass big home? The only thing it didn't pack away in Carson City was my attachment to the person who would live in that house. And its blocking my view of joy. Even a nice long barefoot walk down one of my favorite beaches didn't untie the pain.
But it loosened her, and two yoga classes later I am opened enough to write about it and wrangle her death grip around my heart.
Working with blocks in Christina's class in all the opening poses, including full sun salutations, was a blessing. Intellectually and emotionally I know the blocks and how to use them in poses. I also know what the yogis so beautifully explain in the sutras as kleshas, the mental blocks in the mind. I can see I"m in the grips of abhinevesha, attachment to the status quo. Its a fear of death, and I'm afraid I'm not awesome without that house. All my 'intelligence' isn't able to break the circuits of pain, my wounds run too deep. Its a relief to get out of my head and into my body on the yoga mat, and its a relief to remove myself from all the voices from people and in my own head who have opinions about where I live.
In class we worked with blocks between our upper thighs and I squeezed into them with all my might in an attempt to overpower them, to beat them at their own game. To no avail, of course, and when I quit struggling and hating them so much I see they help me align. My sacrum widened, my low back eased, my triceps activated and the soles of my feet actually tingled. Instead of me teaching my body how to heal, my body taught me.
The house in Carson City, in spite of all her beauty, wasn't the correct alignment and I've known that for a while. The mysterious path to freeing her opened up easily, walking through her less so. The packing was hard. My skin bruised and scratched. My ego too .
We didn't use the blocks for the whole of Christina's class. The removal of them lightened the load from my weary bones, deeper muscles held me strong and new avenues of freedom opened up. So did my new post-Carson City life which includes Mark Ellman's Carmel Miranda, an evening of music at Mick Fleetwood's. the open arms of Maui friends, and my clutter free bungalow, that's only one block away from the beach, which, in the scheme of things, isn't a block at all.