Day by day life happens. We keep plugging along with deadlines, commitments, work, kids, life, responsibility.

If we keep busy enough we plow through and like a rock that’s thrown with just the right curvature into the water, skip over the ups and downs and disruptions.  Skimming the surface with lightning speed and weightlessness in order to bypass some of the unpleasantries along the way.

Skipping rocks.

Where there are rocks beside water I’m drawn to attempt the masterful feat of trying to skip rocks.  It’s a childhood thing.  We’ve taught our kids much the same thing.  Test your skill, we seem to say.  See if you can get all things right, in the exact moment, to make it happen.

But it’s hard to do. Very hard. You need all the right conditions in play.

Gravity naturally wants to pull the rock down.  Just as the moment your rock needs to glide over, a  large wave appears and envelopes it. Stops it dead in its track.  Swallows it whole.

So you try again. And again.

Again, and again, and again.

Today was one of those days where I hate my yoga practice.  Those thoughts of trying again, and again, and again rolling over in my brain.

It started okay.  I wanted to be there.

As we approach the closure to our course, there is such fun and comfort and friendship within our class of yoga teacher trainees.  All of us there laying around the floor with our mats pulled up beside one another, we sat around chatting this morning and joked how it was somewhat like a slumber party.  The room dark, as the sun had not fully burst through the open windows so early in the morning.

But once we started class, I could feel it coming on.  Simmering below the surface, some unexplored emotion rising.

Push it down. Smooth it over.  Focus.

What is all this new stuff our teacher is throwing our way?  I’m full.  Done.  There has been so much to learn already.  It’s enough.

Then a brief comment how there’s two of us our teacher needs to speak with.  The two of us who are not yet teaching.

Ugh.  This again.

I’m back and forth about my readiness to teach, much like the waves I mentioned above.  Up one minute, down the next.  Yes, no, yes…maybe.

Sweating now.  She says we’re going to focus a little on headstands before we finish.

Headstands?  I can’t do headstands.

Teaching?  I’m not sure.

Work?  Work?  Work?  Why do I have to think about that? Here?  Now?

I don’t want to think about anything.  Isn’t that what this yoga is for? When I can just block everything else out of my life and focus on me.  My breath. My body. The stillness. The bliss.

Well, … not today.

We can try to push it all down.  Ignore what’s happening.

I am stressed about something and much as I wish it would all just fade away, that’s not going to happen.  It’s there.  It’s an issue for me.  It is in my mind, in my thoughts, in my body.  Hiding out, just below the surface. And though I don’t know the answer or the resolution to it, it will not just slip away.

I must meet it head on.

The same as I need to meet my headstands head-on no matter if I want to, or if I think I can, or if I think I can’t.  It’s going to be there.  Why not try and move forward with it?  Get over it. Move on.  Make a decision.  Conquer.

And so it was today.

Much as I didn’t want to even try, I made it up into a headstand.

With some help. 

This asking for help thing is a hard one for me. 

When you dip into the water, get below the surface, find the stillness, all is revealed.

What might you find there?