Breathe Through It

Tuesday's yoga class was to practice stillness. (Confession: I have started doing yoga at home watching videos. Yoga with Adriene. I apologize for nothing) When I saw the title of the video I thought, "F- yeah! I can breath in savasana for a really long time."

Running with my Run/Yoga crew along the Charles River

It turns out that stillness was not what I thought it was. Instead, the mission was to come to, "moments that ask us to stay." Adriene asked, "Are you the type of person who runs away when you feel discomfort... or can you play it out with consciousness?" Shit, I thought. I was ready to lie down.

And yet, this is why I come to yoga. It is a chance for me to learn to breathe through moments that are hard. To practice the breathing, the getting through it, and knowing that even those hard moments shall pass. Yoga is a practice in terms of getting better and better at it. But I also see yoga as practice - practice breathing through challenges.

In the past almost-two years, Jessie and I have been a part of a Run/Yoga community. This weekly group has helped me learn to breath through running when running gets tough. (And obviously so much more.) I've found that since we've started this, it has been easier for me to breath through some tough runs. And then sometimes not. But during those times, I also remember that the hard parts of the run, just like holding a Warrior pose, will end.

We run and yoga year round,
Halloween yoga, photo from Cara Gilman's (public!)
Facebook page. She's our leader. Fearless. 

Winter run/yoga. This was a scavenger hunt pic -
Downward Dog, with a dog.
Photo from my sista, Jessie

In my last post I included a picture from Mary Oliver's book Upstream that says, "Teilhard de Chardin was not talking about how to escape anguish, but how to live with it." In the past two years, with so much grief in my life, yoga has helped me learn how to breath through anguish.

I have discovered this week there is still more to practice. During my summer off, I decided to once and for all put a damn book down into words. I started my summer with a daily schedule, including enough hours of reading and writing that I should at least get a good first draft done. This has been one of my most challenging hurdles yet. Because writing is not easy, folks. I'm sure half of you out there are saying, "Duh, Meg, if it were easy everyone would do it." The other half are probably thinking, "Really? Writing isn't real work. You can just do it any time."

I've stalked enough children's authors events/blogs/twitter accounts to know ahead of time that this task would not be easy. Which is why I made the schedule. Well, let me tell you folks, it is not only hard, it is scary.

You see, by always talking about it and not doing it, I am a person with some great ideas and a lot of potential. Folks can say, "Oh Meg, she is going to write a children's book. She has great ideas and lots of potential." Turns out, it's like my real life yoga instructor Cara once said, compost is just a pile of crap until you use it. Right? My ideas, my potential, not worth a whole lot if I can't actually put words on paper.

I feel ya, Alistair. Writing makes me want to curl up in a box too. 

Here's how the writing has gone so far.

First day: sit down at desk. Sip coffee just like many favorite authors claimed to do. Sit. Sit some more. Wonder if I really have anything more than just a long winded intro. Think perhaps I need to do some background research into one character's life instead of write. Do that.

Second day: sit down at desk. Sip coffee. Type 4 pages. Feel good.

Third day: sit down at desk. Sip coffee. Look around the room as if brilliant idea for next part of the book will magically appear. Wonder why I can't just "to-do" list my way through this.

And so on, and so forth. If I haven't responded to your email, phone call, or text, it was because I was battling my own urge to do anything but write and then feeling guilty for doing nothing in the end. Sorry guys.

I'm very good at to-do lists. I'm very good at accomplishing tasks and getting things done. I can multi-task like a beast. Apparently, sitting and putting time into writing is not something I am quite good at. I found myself looking for "things to do" so I could feel like at least I got something done.

Then, Yoga with Adriene. Halfway through the video, in one particularly long still moment holding a pose, Adriene reminded us, "Stick with me." Yeah, yeah, I thought. I can stick with yoga. Then she said, "Use your breath. It's a practice. It's a training. How do you handle discomfort? Can you be still and present in the moment? Can you access the power that you have within you with your breath?"

Duuuuh! So obvious. I am not really good at using my breath when I write. I am not really good at handling the discomfort of trying to write. Today, I decided to push myself and use my practice.

Today also happened to be the first day of Teachers Write. Teachers Write is a free, online writing camp for teachers who want to try their hand at writing. It is hosted by three for-real published authors: Kate Messner, Gae Polisner, and Jo Knowles. They have a whole schedule and system to help you keep writing and provide feedback. Last year, I started out strong but ended up on the sidelines and watched.

This morning, the first day of camp launched and there I sat. Holy crap, I can't even tell you how nervous I was to put my words out there. Isn't it funny that I can ramble on about anything on this blog but when it comes to crafting something I just about died? At first I wanted to just cry. Then I wanted to get up and get some things done. I have a knitting project I need to work on. Cats needed to be fed. I had a couple of errands I could knock out. Nope, nope, nope. I decided to stop, breath, and write. That's what I did! I posted 5 paragraphs from my WIP (work in progress, see how writerly I am?) and then promptly shut down the computer and got to some errands. When I arrived home a few hours later, there was my feedback. And it wasn't awful. In fact, it was so helpful.

So there you have it folks. Before this summer, I would have told you I was able to breath through discomfort, be present in the moment, and access power in my breath. I guess that was all just practice for this. Taking one breath at a time.

Leaping. In running, and yoga, and writing.