December 21, 2012 | 12:43 pm

Showing Up

Posted by Michelle Azar

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Mine was a messy practice this morning. And I’m not being hard on myself. I rushed through the standing postures, barely breathing the full 5 counts, just dying to get to the seated stuff, only to find the same issue at hand once landing my bum on the mat (my 7-year-old declared TUSH a bad word so I never know what to call our bottoms anymore!) I was too hungry. Too sore. Too tired. I was just going through the motions. Suddenly, I realized, that was okay today too. The fact was, I had the desire or discipline at least to show up, and anything that happens from there cannot be bad. Who knows how it might have merit later in the day. I thought it seemed akin to a prayer practice too. Sometimes we sit and just go through the motions, repeating a phrase or a mantra or a prayer that might be required of us, and we are not really connected to the words. The meaning and the breath we are offering are out of synch. But if that is all we have to offer that day, maybe that just has to be enough. And again, the fact is that we showed up for it and don’t necessarily know where it will take us from there. Show up. We must show up. Daily. To our obligations, certainly, but also to our desires. To the more elusive practices of our lives. Sometimes it will be a fake it til you make it experience, but there is much knowledge to be gained from those as well. At the end of my practice, I got a gift. A surprise adjustment in savasana. Rest practice WITH a massage? Please, if that is not reward for just showing up I don’t know what is. I wish you all a deeply relaxed winter solstice, with time for the mundane and the holy. In peace, Michelle