Hi there,
I'm on a cozy, supportive, (self)compassionate kick right now.
(last week's note = tucking into a sleeping bag of (self)compassion)
Well, maybe it's not a kick, maybe it's a sweet remembrance?
I was starting my yoga practice earlier today. I've been using a mat that's thinner than my regular one. I need to give the regular one a good clean and haven't gotten around to it yet.
I get on my hands and knees, my spine ready for a slow cat / cow flow* and my knees start yelling at me.
I put off buying yoga blankets for years, literally. Told myself I could do without them, because well, I could. I would find random blankets and pillows nearby and make it work.
Thankfully just recently I bought three.
I lay one out over the mat, then kneeled on the layers. Instant comfort for my knees. Instant ease through my whole body.
The blankets found their way into every pose.
I can make do with the thin mat and the odds and ends nearby. I am quite good at making do. I don't like assuming anything about you though I do imagine you might be quite good at making do, too?
The thing about going without (the shadow side of making do?) is that there might actually be a big shift available right around the corner by adding a few layers of ease or softness.
Simply using three appropriate blankets shifted the entire practice for me.
It took me years to be ready to buy the blankets for myself. It's taken many recent and not-so-recent conversations about self-compassion, healing, and self-honoring to be ready for this "simple" integration of blankets (thank you to several dear readers who I've talked with recently about all this!).
I'm not here to make softening in one's yoga practice or in one's life seem easy or quick. I am here to share that it's possible and that it's human and that it can be tangibly felt. I am here to connect softening to being with ourselves and one another.
I know three blankets won't fix all the problems. But it definitely means something to give oneself the opportunity to integrate ease and softness wherever one can.
I imagine the integration could calm the body, the nervous system, the ways of being in relationship with others... I wonder what else! That definitely means something.
When we offer ourselves these blankets of ease, we might then have some spaciousness within ourselves to be able to share more blankets with others in our circles who need them as well. That definitely means something, too.
To blankets of (knee)ease meaning something.
To tucking ourselves into sleeping bags of (self)compassion.
And hmmm well, we'll see what comes out onto the page next week ;-)
til then,
Cassandra
*cat / cow flow = imagine a cat stretching her back up and then a cow bringing her belly towards the ground and moo-ing - that's the flow!