Last week I wrote about the healing powers of gardening, and how I had neglected my garden even though I knew it was exactly what I needed during one of the hardest years of my life.
Grief does strange things to a person. Since losing my brother Ben, I had not been able to do very much for myself — whether that was survivors’ guilt, or simply that I couldn’t locate myself clearly enough to think about my own needs, I’m not entirely sure. I had also kept myself from yoga for months, even knowing how much it would help me.
But this week I went to a yoga class for the first time in months. I unrolled my mat and went to the cupboard to collect my props. Two blocks. A blanket. I laid them out in the familiar order I always have, a kind pre-yoga ritual that signals to my brain something good is about to happen. It was a Yin/Nidra class — slow, deep rest. I hadn’t been to a class in a long time. Bits and pieces at home, yes, but not this. Not a room full of people all arriving together for the same purpose. And as I got on the mat I felt my whole chest soften- like a huge exhale- the muscle memory of tension releasing. Yogis talk about the mat as home, and when you practise with any regularity it does become a kind of home you return to. A sanctuary. Lying there I felt an overwhelming sense of comfort, and I realised I had been neglecting the one thing I needed most.
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