Today in yoga class, the teacher, who often starts with a story, told us about how she was hoping to avoid a particular holiday party but it turns out she would be stuck going to it. Immediately, she started clenching her fists and anticipating what it would be like to be around these people she dreaded spending time with. She felt herself literally turning red with anger. And then, she thought about a time she was on a bus with a mother and her young son and she saw the child screaming and crying inconsolably. It became apparent that the child had just come from getting measured and examined for eye glasses and was dreading wearing them, anticipating the grief he would get from the other kids, how uncomfortable they would be and how these glasses would change his life. My yoga teacher realized that she was doing the same thing. The anticipation of this party and what people would say and how she would react, were enough to raise her blood pressure.
The lesson is that we create the drama in our minds and hold on to it for dear life, living out events that never happened, and don’t necessarily need to happen. In yoga class, one often hears the words “let go of what you don’t need.” This is the perfect advice as the year winds down. There is so much that happened that we hold on to from a few days ago, from a few months ago and from years and years ago. We don’t even realize we are holding onto all this stuff but as the year winds to a close, perhaps a better strategy than adding resolutions, is letting go of what we don’t need anymore.
MedicineForMindBodySpirit 