Collapsed Into

On Saturday I went to a Yin Yoga workshop at my beloved Yoga studio.  It started off with a discussion on the logistics, background, health benefits, and explanation of poses.  Then we were guided through a ninety minute practice.

This was my second time practicing Yin.  (You can read about my first experience HERE if you wish.) And much like my first experience–I once again struggled mentally when the poses started to work on me–resulting in sensations of great discomfort.

It’s so incredible how the mind reacts once things are not copacetic.  It’s funny the stories it will conjure up to help rescue you and lure you away from what you intended to do–just because things aren’t feeling like sweet butter or salt water taffy.

But once again, I refused to let my mind win and so I focused on my breath.  Breathing deeply through my nose, I started to actually become mesmerized by the sound.  And the sound started to feel like waves from the ocean.  And my mind drifted from the achy feeling in my hips to the rhythm of the waves crashing in and around me.

The five minute poses began to melt.  I started to relax deeper.

Go inward easier.

And the noise  inside my head finally collapsed leaving me feeling like sweet butter and salt water taffy.

When the workshop was over and I got home, I immediately crawled into bed and took a long nap and woke up with only FEARLESS™ Painting on my mind.

Like my usual routine, I tacked up some vellum bristol to the wall, slapped some paints on my palette, tied the ol’ apron on, and turned up some Michael Franti tunes on the laptop.  But this time nothing flowed.  Everything felt forced–manipulated–like pure crap-ola.  I couldn’t hear my painting.  I couldn’t feel what it needed or how to rescue it.  I felt so freaking lost.

And then it came to me.

The music was too loud.  Too fast.  Too noisy.

The music, which usually I jam out and love–which helps me groove my paintings–this time felt like it was attacking me.  The music felt like it was suffocating me even.

I needed stillness.

And so I turned it off.  Tacked up another vellum bristol to the wall, and came back to my breath.

I moved my brush slowly, methodically.  Like salt water taffy and sweet butter.

I stood still and grounded.

I could hear the painting talk to me again.  And she even  began to softly sing.  She called me back home.

And I collapsed into the painting.  I melted into the experience.  I flowed and moved and danced slowly with Creative Source itself.

And it felt better than sweet butter.
Better than salt water taffy.