"Conscious tending to well being."

I had a hermity weekend last weekend. The previous two had been spent away from home, so this was a bit of catch-up on housework and downtime. I’m being pretty careful about giving myself plenty of downtime these days, having recently recognized just how very toxic notable parts of my life are….and since they can’t quite be jettisoned just yet, I’m walking a very fine line in trying to balance the burdens they create in me.

(It turns out that spending 40+ hours a week in an establishment that is a poster child for everything that’s wrong with capitalism, corporate greed, and patriarchy…..um, reallyreallyreally sucks. If you can imagine.)

So, yeah, I’m being super gentle with myself, since I’ve decided to carry on with the corporate day job for now.

Saturday morning, I tried a few new yoga routines. I have one I cobbled together that I’ve been working for years, but sometimes I like to see what other poses and techniques might be out there. During one of the routines, the lady running it was really explicit about keeping poses comfortable and making adjustments as needed for the yogi’s particular body. She kept coming back to that in each pose, talking about “conscious tending to well being.”

Boy did that phrase strike a chord with me. It’s become my whole modus operandi these days, trying to always be conscious of where I am and what my needs are – and then to actually make those needs priority enough to take care of them properly. This seems like a no-brainer, but I have found it pretty challenging in surprising ways. Like…I am so very tired, but rather than sleep, I can always come up with something else to do – some book to read or list to write, some show to watch or chore to take care of. Or I’m super thirsty, but can’t get a drink till I take care of just this one thing. It’s fucking stupid, and it pisses me off when I see myself doing it…but these are patterns I’ve spent my whole life creating, and they’re not going away without a fight. So, you know, I walk that fine line…compassion, gentleness, comfort….and pushing, stretching, shifting.

Sometimes my life feels like a yoga pose, like I’m balanced in downward facing dog, feeling the stretch in my hamstrings and calves, balancing on my arms, feeling my spine opening and stretching, breathing and holding and pushing just that tiny fraction further into the pose, and breathing and holding again.