Just. Be.

How getting sick and making the horrible decision to go to yoga reminded me that sometimes just breathing in the present moment is enough.

“Cheers!”

“Ugh that was horrible it tastes like grass. That makes sense it’s wheatgrass, but still…”

“This better work.”

My friend and I had the brilliant idea to go to a yoga class to try to help our bodies over come a small cold. The kind where you have a pathetic dry cough but otherwise don’t feel that crappy so you become overly ambitious. At least that’s how I felt, and I really thought being in a hot room stretching would be a great help. Oh and of course juice shots before class would be brilliant and not at all swishy in my stomach since I would essentially have 0 time to digest. Not my most glorious thought process ever.

At any rate, about half way through the class she leaves the room. Once she is back I have the largest urge to cough that I’ve ever had in my life. I knew that if I left it would just be such a distraction to everyone if I came back, so I had to get it together. The thing is, the coughing reflex is there for a reason. And your body really doesn’t care that you’re in an absolutely silent room.

Every time I was in a stretch compressing my chest or neck, my body just wasn’t having it. At its worse, I sat up and tried to regulate my breathing. What I meant to tell myself was to calm down, concentrate, relax. But all I could think besides my lungs wanting to slap me was “just be.”

I was telling myself that in this moment it is alright to just exist. To just be present. To not be doing anything else other than breathe well. I am constantly pushing myself forward, new tasks, new hobbies, new jobs. Making every moment productive. Unfortunately we often don’t appreciate our body until something is wrong. Then we can’t believe how much we enjoyed breathing out of two nostrils.

I hope this may be a reminder to you to give your body a break, to be kind to it. Not to stress it out. And if you need to, just be.