"Nothing is ever lost; it is here."

Tonight, I returned to my yoga practice after a two-week break to deal with my father's accident & death. I was extremely nervous for class as I'm not in the habit of taking long stretches of time off and also because I have a lot of emotions bubbling around inside that I was afraid would release in a way I couldn't control. What can I say? Once a control freak, always a control freak. Especially without the benefit of daily yoga practice.

Predictably, my body was stiff and inflexible. I felt wildly out of alignment on most postures. I couldn't muster up the energy to power through the standing series. I had to lay down in savasana for the majority of the standing series and I think I might have (oops) fallen asleep during some of it. At any rate, my brain was kind of shut off and my body & heart felt as heavy as bricks.

The floor series was pretty solid, though I was still plagued by the inflexibility and heavy heart. I grew increasingly emotional with each floor posture. My instructor (who knew what the deal was with me) said some really profound things about loss in between postures. The one that (again, predictably) set me off into a crying jag was, "Nothing is ever lost; it is here." It was so simple and so beautiful and reached into my heart.

So after that point, I couldn't keep myself from crying but I didn't let it stop me from doing the postures. I cried from half tortoise past the end of class. I actually haven't done a whole lot of crying in the past two weeks and I think perhaps my body and my soul needed to release that emotion. I was mildly embarrassed but there wasn't much I could do about it. I just hope my tears didn't distract anyone from their practice.

It was a pretty unremarkable class physically but it was very therapeutic and helpful to me emotionally. I think that when I'm caught up at work, I will undertake a 64 day challenge, one for each year of my father's life, dedicated to his memory. I think this will help me to deal with a lot of the complex emotions that surface when you lose a loved one, as well as keep me connected to his spirit via yoga and meditation. I'm also contemplating a 10-day Vipassana meditation retreat and a beginner meditation class at the Ananda Center. 2011 is going to be a confusing and difficult one for me and I need all the help I can get.