I’m gonna try this but I’m not going to like it . . .

Ok, I am really new at this blogging thing–not only in respect to me being “technologically challenged” but I am VERY uncomfortable putting myself out there on the internet. But, the one of the most important things I learned during my first weekend of yoga teacher training is . . . FEAR. And how to face it.

I first want to say how very grateful I am for my fellow classmates who are so supportive (no yoga pun intended) and kind. I also want to COMPLETELY thank our teachers, Michelle, Sethyne and Madeline for their non-judgmental, unconditional patience and guidance.

I really wish I had deep spiritual insights like the rest of my classmates posted. What I came up with is how much fear I faced this weekend. First, fear of attending the training (you have no idea what it took to get me out of the house each of those days). The excuses I came up with were awesome. Suddenly, I became very interested in cleaning my toilet right before it was time to leave. I felt intense need to spend quality time with my cat (and I don’t even really like my cat). Or I had problems justifying the time and money to go to the training when there were global-warming-abused-third world-kitty-orphans to save. So the out-the-door part was big.

Then I had to confront my fear of my own body (yes, I know this sounds strange, but it’s true). I really realized this weekend how inept and disconnected I am from my own physical self. I was SO exhausted when I went home each night and it wasn’t the physical exercise–it was the mental concentration I had to exhibit in order to find individual muscles, bones, parts of my own body and then move them–or not move them.

I am amazed at how complex and incredible the human body is. I remember a story (WARNING: this is gonna be kinda gross) that a friend of mine who is a mortician told me (I hang out with really classy people). I asked him what was the strangest thing that ever happened to him in his line of work. He said there was a weight-lifter who died while doing a bench press without a spotter (the dumbbell had dropped over his neck because he couldn’t sustain the weight with this arms). When the cadaver came in to the mortuary the arms were still frozen in the position of lifting (or failed attempt at lifting) the weight. My friend had turned around to get something to “fix” this problem, as he had assumed rigor had set this way and it probably wouldn’t look good at the funeral. The body sat up slightly, and it’s arms completed the repetition of the weight lift, landing down my its sides. This really freaked my friend out, and he called a medical examiner to make sure there wasn’t something that had been “missed” during the examination. The medical examiner stated that sometimes the electrical memory of our intention is stored in the musculature itself and that even though this man’s brain had been dead for a couple days, the memory was still there and needed to be completed.

Wow. Wow. How much emotional trauma is stored in our muscular/somatic memory? How much of my mental intentions will be stored in my physical body even after I’m gone? It’s really amazing. And that’s why I’m in this training. That’s why I have to face my fears of blogging, having people look at my body, doing poses where I concentrate so hard my head hurts. Because when I die, I don’t want to have that one last pose that I didn’t complete stored in my body–and freak out another mortician.

Namaste.

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