Big Muscles and Big Moves: Yoga with Lauren at 808 Wellness, Kihei, Maui: February 15, 2020
Acting big at Keawakapu Beach.
Twyla Tharpe said, "when your muscles stretch rather than constrict, you expand your share of the planet". She advises, in her book Keep It Moving:Lessons For The Rest Of Your Life, to take up space in our lives. Keep growing. Why is it that, as we age, we begin to shrink, including the sizes of our dreams and of our houses.
Of course, all of Ms. Tharps’s call to action on this subject grabs my attention. Big moves, big muscles, big stretches. Big houses.
In practice this morning as we rolled through yet more Sun A's (I've done thousands of them, in just this last visit to Maui, or so it feels like), I felt my big muscles firing, muscles like in my thighs, front and back, when I lift my kneecaps. Oh the effort! Admittedly my thighs jiggle a little so I’m painfully aware I need strengthening. So why the harrumphing? Because it takes a huge amount of effort to step into this new level of power.
I'm endeavoring to take up space, meaning stretch further, open wider, feel fuller and bigger from the inside out. In doing so I have noticed that I’m habitually doing the opposite; I'm keeping myself small. All of this necessary to the journey, it seems, when you’re attempting to make any changes in your life. You have to outgrow yourself.
I see i”m part lazy, but even more, part fearful. In prasarita padatadasana when I try to lengthen my spine, ground down evenly on both feet, widen my collarbones all while folding forward feels like I'll get knocked out of balance, it feels like is isn't pretty, it feels unsure. Because taking myself bigger is all these things; my life will get knocked out of balance, I won't look as composed and elegant and put together (not that I’m fooling anyone, anyhow). As I am trying on new alignments, and I don’t just mean on the mat I can feel the earth moving under my feet and I’m a little unsteady at best, overwhelmed at worst.
Just this week I had to jump in bed mid day, and pull the covers over my head, literally, to keep myself, well, contained. I’d just received a message on my phone from Lisa Hagan, a well known, well respected literary agent who loves my book proposal. She thinks I’m funny. She thinks the book is really good.
I’ve been praying for a moment like this.
But stepping up, showing up, growing up and actually returning her call took some doing. This required getting myself fully on board, albeit below the covers. Putting my dreams and desires into action. What had to be put to bed, so to speak, was the person I had to let go of. The i’m just writing a little book here to pass the time away, and instead, embrace what I’ve really been wanting: I’m writing a NYT Bestseller and i’m getting ready to be the star of my own life. Aadil Palkhivala said, “yoga doesn’t care about the person you were but about the person you’re becoming”.
So who do I want to be, really?
I mean, believe me, it will take a miracle for my book to make it. I’m not unaware of obstacles. I do my best to steer away from magical thinking. But I am becoming a person who believes in miracles and real magic. And hard work, like firing those big muscles this morning.
So. Yes. To all of it. And you know what,? By that afternoon I had myself a bonafide literary agent.
Big bold moves like three legged dog pose to twisted one leg plank, like corkscrewing low lunge to pyramid, simultaneously feels amazing and effortful. "Yoga is the self lifting the self", it says in the Gita. And it sure does feel awesome to reach, stretch, and grow up and out of the small, constricted versions of myself. I started firing into the big muscle groups, quads, hams, biceps, abdominals; I began feeling myself getting stronger and more powerful with each breath. But it also dawns on me, what's firing isn't necessarily my "big muscles and big moves". These things are byproducts of my BIG DECISION to expand my life.
Oh, and the house thing. We’re listing our house in Reno next week. It will take a miracle to sell because we overspent on the remodel. But the deal is, it’s not a good fit for us. It’s not the place I’d throw covers over myself when the news hits that the book has been picked up by a big publisher.
I have faith I’ll find the right place. Or rather places, on the mat, in the world, and in my life. And that’s what’s driving my yoga today.
Health, Love, and Rock N Roll