One woman's perspective of (twin) parenting (and other thoughts about things)
Years ago, when I was still singing full time, I had a conversation with a dancer that always stuck with me, even though I didn’t realise at the time quite how life changing it would be.
We were talking about exercise and sport and how, basically, I’m rubbish at (sticking at) them. But I understood that I needed to do something because I wasn’t getting any younger and my knees weren’t getting any more lubricated.
Then she offered me this little nugget: everybody has their Thing, their way of being physically active. We all try different things over the years, but they all fade, either quickly or a few months in. When you find your Thing, though, you are motivated to do it because it’s enjoyable (for some variable definition of enjoyable) - you don’t really think of it as Exercise That You Should Do. And therefore keeping fit and healthy stops being a chore.
Personally speaking, I have had many failed attempts. I’ve tried standard gym memberships (with/without personal trainers), weight lifting, exercise classes (Zumba, not CORE CONDITIONING because no thanks), running (that one lasted a while actually but then I plateaued and it made me sad. Also boobs.), climbing (I genuinely loved that, but never got round to going back. Also, again, boobs.), dance classes (love dancing, do not love close physical interaction with strangers) and probably more I’ve forgotten. I had also tried yoga classes. Which I kind of enjoyed, but they didn’t totally click, for reasons I didn’t understand at the time.
Then one day, a couple of years later, a friend of mine pointed me towards Yoga with Adriene. I started, as I think most people do, with one of her “30 days of yoga” courses that she releases each January.
BOOM.
Life. Changed.
I mean, not overnight, because this isn’t a RomCom - that first “30 days” course took me 2 and a half months (it wasn’t until the third or fourth year that I actually managed it in a month)…
But here’s the thing about YWA - and at home yoga in general (because Adriene would be the first to say that it’s not about her): it’s just you and your mat. What that means for me is that there’s nobody else there to try and compete with. This, it turns out, is quite a major element of why I’ve never managed to stick with things before - whether it’s a room full of people that I’m desperate to Be Better Than (weight lifting), or a sinking feeling that I’ve gotten as good as I’m ever going to get and I’m still not really achieving anything (running), competitiveness gets in the way. With yoga, it feels like there’s no way you can possibly stop getting better because there is always something else you can focus on. So it’s not a battle and you don’t plateau.
Perfect.
Also, apropos of nothing, when you’re at home, you don’t have to wear The Right Clothing (like a sports bra because who wants to wear one of those when you’re trying to breathe deeply). Yoga in pajamas is a thing and it’s beautiful.
So what are the actual benefits? This is where it gets interesting.
I think everybody understands that yoga is awesome on the physical front - you burn calories, you tone muscles, you improve joint flexibility and stability, you improve your posture et c. (I mean, I literally could go on).
But for me (and plenty of others), the physical benefits are a kind of base camp. A starting point from which you realise that yoga also totally looks after your spiritual and mental health as well. No great surprise when you remember that it has its roots in Buddhism, but yet here I am, still having my mind blown by it.
Until recently, I wasn’t able to articulate exactly why this is. And then I saw a tweet (that I wish I could find again, but alas I cannot) that summed it up perfectly. Yoga is not (just) about hitting poses, stretching muscles or pushing yourself to the limit. It’s about training your brain to be comfortable with a state of continual, gentle, almost imperceptible improvement.
What on earth am I talking about?
So, take a classic yoga pose that a lot of people have heard of. Cat/cow is a good option. Here, on a basic level, you are on all fours, wrists under shoulders, knees under hips, and you flex your spine - breathe in: tummy down, chest pointing forward, head up; breathe out: tummy up, shoulders rounded, head tucked.
And if you just did that, working with that level of detail, every day, you would benefit: physically, mentally and spiritually (because, if nothing else, you’re carving time out for yourself and mobilising your spine, neither of which any of us do enough of).
BUT if you’ve been doing yoga for a while, you start to notice that it’s not just BOOM hit the mat BOOM breathe in, tummy down BOOM breathe out, tummy up. It’s the tiny adjustments that you start realising you need to/can make. Except you don’t notice when you start noticing that you need to make them.
(insert mind blown emoji here)
Maybe one wrist isn’t quite underneath the shoulder. And you notice this not because your bones feel wrong but because your soul feels wrong - the energy isn’t flowing right. Or when you go to move to cat pose, you realise that there are a million ways of doing that, and one way feels more “peaceful” (physically and spiritually) than another (on a given day), so you do that one. Or when you’re in downward dog and you move your hips back a tiny bit more because you have an inkling that you might benefit from that - and BOOM the energy is suddenly flowing freely and your muscles are all working so much more efficiently and healthily.
I could go on. In fact, if I ever corner you in a pub and start talking about yoga, you probably want to get comfortable.
Anyway, this process of tiny tweaks is the key to the mental and spiritual benefits of yoga, in my experience. Adriene has her catchphrases - “breathe like you love yourself”, “find what feels good”, “breathe lots of love in and lots of love out” - but for me, the one that sticks the most is more of a philosophy than a catchphrase. It’s the idea that what you do on the (yoga) mat affects what you do off it.
Because, for me, slowing things down on the mat isn’t about going more slowly. It’s about training my brain to kind of go in “slow motion” - which allows me to notice more of the tiny things that I can change to improve my experience. And wouldn’t you just know it - by training my brain to do that during cat/cow, I have accidentally trained it to do that in my day to day life as well.
I am certain I’ll post about mindfulness a whole load more times, but it’s worth just mentioning here that this “slow motion” practice is - for me at least - the crux of mindful thinking. If you can just Slow Things Down so that you notice more and live more fully in the current moment, you strengthen your brain’s ability to do that again and again and more easily and more regularly. The practical outcome of this way of thinking, for me, is that life feels less rushed, less frantic.
And so we come to Keanu. You know the bit in the Matrix where the bullet has been fired and then Neo experiences life in slo-mo, which means he can get out of the way of the bullet? It’s (a bit) like that. When the world around you feels like it’s going more slowly, then you can either fit more stuff in or you can do the same amount of stuff but with more space around it. The latter is probably more Zen, but I find the former helps as well sometimes.
So there you go. Do yoga, be more Keanu. Dodge (emotional, spiritual, mental) bullets.
xx