Several years ago after I survived a serious illness, that required a life-retaining surgery to get my health back on track, I started attending yoga classes.
After I took a home-practice workshop I more or less stopped taking classes (because they were expensive and hard to slot into my schedule). Now, depending on the season, I like to start the day with 10 sun salutations and a few twists or bends or whatever feels right.
The take away from the yoga is this: it's not what you do on the mat but what happens when you step off the mat.
I've liked yoga because it taught me to breathe through discomfort. I don't know if you were abused or know someone who was abused, but some abused people tend to hold their breath. I think this is a fight or flight thing. I used to hold my breath and I did it for so long I didn't even know there was another way to breathe. I also held my muscles all bunched up. (Two years ago I was Rolfed and that helped open things up, a lot. If you can handle the pain, being Rolfed is totally worth every single penny.)
When I was younger (and I mean around aged 45) I was still pretty hotheaded. I didn't mind being hotheaded, it's part of who I am and if I happened to alienate people, so what? Lately I've changed my view on this and taken on a slightly fuzzier approach. This doesn't mean I care if everyone likes me, it just means that I don't have to be quite as cranky all the time.
I bring all of this up because lately I've been breathing and observing things.
A couple of weeks ago my boss yelled at me in a meeting. He really laid into me. I asked him to dial it back a little and he continued to fume. Afterwards he stopped talking to me for 10 days and has yet to apologize.
I viewed his outburst as a demonstration of what an enormous baby he is. But. It was suddenly really peaceful in the workplace because he was no longer shouting at me every ten minutes from his offce, to run off on some errand.
In the past I might have been angered but I thought, "I'm not going to go there with you, you fucking jerk. Stew in your own juices, you miserable prick." I continued to come in on-time, do my work, and collect my paycheck.
He has since cooled off and resumed speaking to me. And that's all well and good, but when I combine his tantrum with the co-worker who called me into her office to give me "career advice," this place end sup with 2 strikes. And we all know, that the 3rd strikes means, "You're out." This begs the question, "Why am I waiting for the 3rd strike?" The answer, "I don't know." I've got a couple of projects in the hopper and I don't mind my boss. It's just, as I said in a previous post, "I need to find my people."
Perhaps my people are just around the corner.
The long and short of it is this: I think that all the sun salutations paid off in spades. By breathing through the stretches (and actually pushing myself), when I encounter situations off the mat, as long as I continue to breathe, things tend to work out.
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