Prototypes Women's Center: Comfortable in your own skin. 10.17.11

Today I was reminded just how painful it can be in early recovery to look within.  In class we had just the ‘O’ phasers, which are the new of the new at Prototypes. I’d had some of them in the preceding hour so at least we had somewhat of a relationship. Willingness was in the air!

We started standing today because when we began the class, all the women were standing at attention and looking at me with a ‘OK…let’s go!!”. At the first side bend the cascade of vrittis came out, which usually happens, but today it seems particularly potent. Things like ‘Don’t look at me I’m fat;, ‘I hurt all over’, ‘I hate my body’. After the pose was released and we felt into the results, the room grew silent. Often I like to connect them to the feeling as prana, but the silence said it all. Like clockwork the vrittis came out second side. Back up to tadasana, what came out as teaching was ‘feel the freedom’.

The teachings of yoga want to come out. I didn’t have to say much to get the point across.

And then I was challenged..how do you know what we’re going through?, how can it be this simple? You probably never had to do this before. A brief but passionate disclosure with my own challenges with addiction left them all with big wide eyes. They really let me in today, close enough to offer a gentle hand’s on and individual instruction for most of them..it was like ‘this hurts..can you show me how to work with this?’.

The women were bold with their questions. I learned, for example, ‘get more comfortable (student’s words)around where you feel the tight spot can be more effective than ‘create space”, and that simple ‘breath into where you feel it’ doesn’t always translate. Sometimes it is matter of standing close to them in support and telling them they are safe to go to where it hurts and take a look.

tadasana

easy side bending

uttanasana with hamstring stretch

tabletop

cat/cow (always quite a few comments about sex here..don’t do this often, but have it on my ‘to do’ list to develope language here )

balasana

easy side plank

balasana

sphinx

bridge x2

easy spine twist with rest between

guided savasana

sit

Namaste

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