Yoga defragmented my brain

Yesterday, my peaceful, calm friend Linda, who is also a yoga teacher, came over for a session. We stretched, we downward facing doged, we breathed, we closed our eyes. My muscles trembled, they worked, and I relaxed. I felt chi in my hands, pins and needles in my feet, and work in my legs.

I enjoyed the yoga, and mostly I had set out for the purpose of strengthening my core without injuring myself. But yoga also did something else. It defragmented my brain. Today I am an organizing machine. I attacked the closet in the baby’s room that was piles of boxes, and bags, filled with clothes, blankets, stuff to keep, clothes too big, clothes to small. Everything had originally started out in separate organized piles, each for a purpose. Over time, clothes would just pile up, some would fall behind the boxes, puzzle pieces would land on the floor, and sometimes, (wince) I would just open the door and just throw stuff in there! But today, I approached it, not as “the project” to do someday, but peacefully, and happily, and the decisions were not hard. Usually, I can’t decide quickly what to keep, what is sentimental, what to give away. Today I filled an entire huge box speedily, and without much thought. I even put my beloved boppy in there, which I used to nurse all five children – with only a moment to pause and think, then decide that if someone else can use it, it is serving a better purpose than filling up a space in my closet. I can only attribute this liquid organizing experience to my Yoga class.

Yoga also undid something, 10 years of motherhood, months of morning school drop off, getting five kids dressed, fed and ready in the space of one hour (and not killing them in the process). Waking up at 4 am with a toddler that will only have mommy, and that needs to be snuggled back to sleep so as not to wake up the rest of the house. The hurriedness of pick one up here, drop one off there, clean the house before the cub scouts arrive for the den meeting – that starts a half hour after dinner!

Today, I am calm, I am whole, I am even blogging – after 2 years off. Thank you Yoga. Namaste!