Yoga

This picture is, in my opinion, the best Polaroid picture I have taken. This was in 2008, the conclusion of our fall semester together. Here are two people I spent the most time with for an entire year of my life. These two were always breaking into random moments of practicing yoga. They did it almost symmetrically, choreographed together like great dance partners.

My personal experience with Yoga was short-lived. Zoila had told me for a long time that it was amazing and that I should take a class and I figured it was an easy grade for a physical education class.

I was right about the easy grade. What I didn't know was that I was going to learn more about myself in that class than I had expected. How I cannot even describe in words what profound feelings that meditation while posing your body generated. I balanced, I focused, I breathed, I cleared my thoughts, I relaxed. My body felt healthier too, learning to move in new ways, stretching muscles and bones and ligaments that I'd probably let go far too long without minding them any attention or love. I had a feeling without the structure of the classroom, I would lose touch with meditating like this. I think it has been almost over 2 years since I've done a Sun Salutation.

I am not sure if anyone else enjoyed the book, "Eat, Pray, Love" by Elizabeth Gilbert. I had a lot of people tell me they thought it was dry. I found that Elizabeth's search for life answers was intriguing and found that her Pray section was the most interesting (regarding India). Elizabeth Gilbert said, "You need to learn how to select your thoughts just the same way you select your clothes every day. This is a power you can cultivate. If you want to control things in your life so bad, work on the mind. That's the only thing you should be trying to control". I think this was the most valuable part of Yoga to me, for once in my life, I allowed my head to go completely blank, which I think Elizabeth had even at one point struggled with. I have just realized that to succeed, to survive, to be okay with yourself you need to have control, and the one thing you will always have control of is your mind (or at least you should).