SavageTimes

Namaste. 

The morning is crisp and cool, a promise of the approaching season, and after I get my kids to school, I have nothing on the calendar. Go back to bed, whispers the heavy voice in my head.  Don’t go to yoga. Yoga won’t change anything. Go back to bed. Shut it all out. 

The Voice was a constant companion I fought against for most of my life from the time I was fourteen until I banished it ten years ago, at thirty-five. The Voice—I called it that long before Blake Shelton won the hearts of female TV viewers–is insiduous, authoritative, charming. Many times, especially during the two years after I experienced shock and emotional trauma at fourteen, The Voice had a life of it’s own. For those two years, I gave over to it completely, let it run me as if I were its puppet, only surfacing here and there when I had the strength to push against it, lock it behind a mental door for awhile. But it never stayed behind that door. Not until I was in my mid-thirties and was able to face it with the experience and confidence I had gained as a mother of two. Then I didn’t just lock it behind a door: I kicked it out.

The Voice found me again a year ago, when revelations about the true state of my marriage had me grasping for belief in its salvation. At first, The Voice was just a slip of fog at the back of my mind. My head felt heavy when The Voice started whispering, my heart slowed, my stomach went cold. I struggled to stay present, spent the summer hiding from the world, putting everything I had into believing I could make things right. People I’d given my support and love to, even when I probably needed it myself, scuttled away, left me hanging. My marriage was being rebuilt from the ground up. There was joy somedays.  Most days I couldn’t eat for the rocks in my gut. Any support outside of my marriage gone, I felt alone, isolated. Like I did when I was fourteen. The Voice spread its fingers, grasping hold of my thoughts during the day, clouding my clarity, loosening my hold on my confidence and even reality. Behaviors I’d learned growing up but had pushed past over the last decade reappeared. The temper I had fought long and hard to keep at bay reared its head.  Anger filled me, consumed me.

I–the me I had dug down deep to find after so many years of allowing someone else’s actions to affect my state of being–was losing grip.

This path was not acceptable. Not for my children, not for me. Not this time.

When my husband left five months ago, I had to fight, or I was lost.

So I run, I let myself sob in the shower until my stomach hurts from heaving, I reach out to people and, when some of them turn away, I find others who don’t. I write.  And I go to yoga.

The Voice does not like yoga.

Adho mukha svanasana

Anxiety roils through my thoughts:checkbook needs to be balanced; am I short this month?  School supplies and clothes might have taken a solid bite. Don’t want to know.

Hands wide, beyond my shoulders, feet flat, spine up and straight, legs stretched, head down. Blood rushes to my head. I breathe. The Voice is disconcerted upside down. I grab each thought and face it, wrap mental arms around it like they are my children: money will be ok–he will help you out if you need more, you have the strenth to ask, and if he doesn’t help, you have reserves. 

Tadasana

Lawyer to call. I hate that I have a lawyer.

Feet apart, spine straight, arms overhead, head tilted to the sky.

Calm overtakes me, settles in my muscles, seeps into my bones. The Voice stutters negativity. Clarity is a lake after a boat’s wake recedes. I tell myself: other people have lawyers; it’s ok.  

Virabhadrasana

Property to split. I can’t say it out loud again. I can’t make another phone call that defines a life I never wanted.

Plank to yoga push-up to cobra. Drop down, nose skimming the floor, push through with the arms and up, reaching the crown of the head to the sky. The Voice rears back, tries to attack. My legs shake, my arms burn, I am stretching beyond the sky.

You may not have wanted this life, but that does not mean it can’t be a good life.  It’s just different. You can do this. You know how. It’s OK.  

Vriksasana

Teachers to talk to. Autumn’s moods might take off again. They need to know.  I’ve known them for five years.  Longer.  I don’t want them to see me as anything different.  I don’t want them to judge me. Friends I considered family have turned their backs. Why wouldn’t people who know even less of me not close up, shut down? I can’t do this.

Legs apart.  Back leg turned in slightly, front leg at ninety degrees.  Arms out and to the sides, palms down.  Lunge into the front knee 90 degrees.  Keep the knee over the ankle, don’t go past the toes. Focus on the hand stretched out front. Focus on the future.  The Voice is distracted by thoughts of a future.  It pauses.

You can do this. They love her. They love you. You can only do what you can do, and you did the best you could. No one who is worth it will judge you. Anyone who is worth it would forgive you for losing control for awhile.  Anyone who is worth it will not be afraid to support you. It will be ok. 

Urdhva mukha svanasana

Don’t want to be here. Not in this place.

Mountain pose, then weight shifts onto one leg.  The sole of the other foot placed inside the opposite leg’s thigh.  Hands to chest in prayer pose.  Breathe.  My weak ankle shakes, shudders, cracks a little.  The Voice cackles, seizes my doubts, shows me images of me falling, immobile, old and alone.  I breathe in, let the air out.  Focus.  Balance.

You are here.  No way around it.  No hiding from reality. You are smart, you are strong, you are beautiful, inside and out: you will be ok.

The Voice pushes at me. I tilt, right myself.  I’m on my weak ankle, but I am upright.  Clarity soothes my heart. Focus ease my mind.  Balance strengthens my soul.

Savasana

The Voice is shoved into the background, mute, powerless, sulking like a child.

Back flat on the floor, arms at my sides, eyes closed.  Breathe.

The Voice will surge again in the days between yoga practices, but over the last few months it’s weakened, realizing it has no power over me. Eventually, I know, it will return to wherever I put it ten years ago. I will never be able to promise its banishment will be for life–The Voice is part of me, came with me from wherever I came from. But I will not let it take me over as it probably has done to my father, as it probably did do to his sister and his father.

I will not let it win.

Namaste.