Presense

Vowed to start (rather, re-start) yoga when school started back up in the fall. It started back up, and so did I. This is my last back-to-school fall, the last time I'm going to let my son trick-or-treat, the last season of football games, the last of so many routines, rituals and rhythms that have come to mark the passage of time.

Yoga is helping me to be present. For one hour, I am "there." I am not in my head. Not planning the future to a T. Not dwelling on the past. Not making a list. Not replaying the incredibly ignorant/annoying/maddening thing someone did or said. I'm present.

It helps that I'm not very good - I need to really pay attention to the teacher. I need to hear the instructions, and see what she's doing, for it to make sense to me. By the time she's said, "Let's do the other side now," I've long forgotten what the first side did.

Savasana is as close as I've ever gotten to an out-of-body experience. At the end of the practice, lying on the mat, laid over a dirty carpet, people all around me, I am in another place. They also call it the Corpse Pose, or final relaxation.

As the mother of a special-needs adult, what happens to him when I'm actually a corpse, is ever on my mind. To make my whole life one big yoga practice, is the goal. To be present. To listen. To watch. To keep breathing. To stretch. To add-on when I can, and adjust when the "pose" is too demanding - that's the key.

And to be at perfect peace for the "final relaxation."





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Carrie is a parent and advocate of a child with special needs and even more special gifts. She blogs at http://carrielink.blogspot.com/ where this is pretty much her favorite topic. Carrie’s book, WIL OF GOD: Embracing the Relentless Love of a Special Child, is available in print on Amazon and all e-readers.