Day Two: Crazy Meditation Insight #1

I finished day two, ending the weekend after 16 hours of learning about yoga, talking about yoga, and doing yoga. I can’t remember the last time I went through so much intense physical training…maybe a high school sports clinic?

I drank so much water, moved so much, learned so much, breathed so much. The first night of training I had the best night’s sleep I’ve had in a long time.

Natalie led us through two meditations on the second day.

For the first, we were laying down in the room, thinking about the space our bodies took in the room and the energy moving through us.

She asked us to think of a way we’d describe ourselves–a word that captures who we are in and to the world–and where/how that description manifests in our bodies.

I tried on a few descriptions, but the one that stuck was mother. The heat I felt in my body from that description centered deep in my core, a whirling energy, near my pelvis. My body felt closed in, the boundaries clearly ending at the edges of my skin. I felt a bit constricted, weighted down, burdened.

Then, she asked us to describe ourselves in what we perceive to be the opposite of the first, and to pay attention to where/how the new description manifests.

The second one for me was free spirit. A lightness spread throughout my being, energy moving multi-directional, leaving the physical boundary of my skin and radiating around the room.

Then, she asked us to hold the two together, let them become one. At this point, with free spirit mother as my guide, I felt a gentle, rising energy, radiating upward from my heart and chest and spreading past my physical boundaries, but not quite as far-reaching as before. A bit more contained, but still lightweight.

It felt like home. I felt complete; whole.

Later, when I told my friend G about my two descriptions, she pointed out that it’s only my perception that they are opposites of one another; my beliefs that make them so. I thought that this was a good point and a reminder that things I may take for granted as obvious aren’t necessarily so.