Here’s another attempt at getting this blog going. I can’t promise I’ll keep it regular, but I’ll try.
I recently found an old wallet, and I’ve been letting my daughter play with it since she is obsessed with my current one. It had a couple of old student IDs in it. I found my husband looking at them one evening. I casually asked, “Did I look a lot younger?” He looked for a long, hard minute, and said, “You just look . . . less stressed . . . ” Awesome.
These are IDs from grad school, not my first round through college, so they’re only 6 or 7 years old. Not really that long ago, right? Yes, I’ve been married and had a child since then. I haven’t really slept a lot in the last 17 months. Not complaining. Kids are awesome. My life has changed in ways I never imagined in the last year and half. Not only do I have a child, but my career has shifted dramatically. I’m cool with it all. I’m happy. I’m more satisfied than I ever imagined. But yeah, I guess that lack of sleep is showing on my face. Sigh.
I start thinking, hmm, what can I do to help look less aged, less stressed, other than plastic surgery? This is why people look for the fountain of youth. Water? Drink more water? I can work on that. Oh yeah, I teach yoga, yoga can help, right? Oh, right, inversions! Inversions help reverse and stop aging, right? That’s what they say. I realize I’ve been thinking a lot about how I don’t teach inversions in my classes very often, and I really don’t practice them as often as I should unless they’re thrown in a class I’m taking. I love inversions and all. I really like headstand because I can do it (yoga humor). Handstand is cool at the wall every now and then. Shoulderstand? The mother of age reversal, right? Eh, shoulderstand always feels kind of awkward to me. I’ve been practicing letting go of the ego in my practice for a few years, so I don’t normally make an effort to find myself in an inversion unless a teacher introduces the opportunity. I probably don’t teach them because I don’t practice them, and since I mainly teach beginners, I don’t want to do it without a wall, and it takes time to get everyone set up on the wall, and I usually forget until there’s not enough time . . . excuses, excuses.
Back to the point, I decided right then to practice some type of inversion for 40 days. It may be as simple as legs up the wall, which is probably one of my favorites. Sure, it might not REALLY reverse the stress on my face, but inversions are good for you! They are balancing and good for the immune system. They’re invigorating and great core work. They leave your cheeks rosy, which probably does make you look younger for a little bit. I also remembered what one of my teachers, Kewal, told me recently. Headstand will change your perspective. Huh. I never knew that, but it kind of makes sense. It literally changes your perspective, but it can also change your perspective on a particular situation. So I figure it will be fun to see where this gets me.
I’m 11 days in so far and already starting to feel a shift. Maybe not so much in my face, but I’m feeling a little bit more space in my cluttered life.
My family is practicing with me. If you just do one pose a day, try this pose for 10 to 15 minutes, morning and/or night. It is luxurious. It will help wake you up or calm you down. It stimulates both the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems.
