This past weekend I experienced what I don't often experience - a weekend off. We yoga teachers work when other people are off for obvious reasons, and it gives us odd working hours. In general, I love my unusual work schedule and it fits my life and personality. But lately I've also noticed that having time off is pretty good too.

Time off can be a hard concept for yoga practitioners. In our free time, we like to practice yoga, and it's sometimes difficult to know what's the right amount and when. There can be a feeling of wanting to do more, learn more, and experience more, and these feelings can cause conflict in us and in our lives. Last year, after I had Covid, I was surprised by how weak I was. 

Once I was negative, I practiced one of the gentle L-shaped asanas, and thought I could add a wooden plank like I had in pregnancy to open my diaphragm. That small addition gave me so much pain (clearly the wrong choice!) and made me feel worse. From making this choice that caused me pain, I saw that I needed to think differently about myself than before. I'm not always going to be strong, resilient, or energetic. There will be times in life when I will need to be more cautious and careful. It felt kind of humiliating and depressing to see myself in that way. I couldn't operate with the same assumptions as before. Sometimes I will need to push less and rest more.

Was this a me that I could accept?

One of the many things that I love about Iyengar yoga is that countless sequences begin with restorative asanas. Even if one is going to practice dynamic asanas, it's possible to begin with resting the body and mind in a regenerative pose. It feels just so good because it is so needed. Yoga students often ask me, “can I do too many restorative asanas?” And “how do I know if I'm practicing too many restorative asanas?” There aren't formulas to answer these questions because it's a process of self-discovery. We learn how to observe ourselves and to understand how our practice affects us.

Taking a step away from our usual rhythms can give us a different perspective. This different perspective can be sometimes be destabilizing to our sense of self. In the moments of change, I like to remember Guruji's words:

Change is not something that we should fear. Rather, it is something that we should welcome. For without change, nothing in this world would ever grow or blossom, and no one in this world would ever move forward to become the person they're meant to be.