Yes you can!

Last Tuesday my alarm went off at 6am like every Tuesday morning for the past 2 years, something felt different...it was really hard for me to get up, and get ready for practice. I didn't feel like getting out of bed when its dark out and leave my beautiful husband in the warm bed all alone ;) I got up and did it anyway, when i got to the Shala, where I practice I unrolled my mat, just like I do every morning but ...Something was different though.... I didn't feel like practicing.

My body felt heavy on this day, my mind soggy. Not good. Anyway I start practicing, thinking I don't want to be doing this very step of the way...until finally I'm almost done...ready to set up for my last posture...which needs the assistance of my teacher. I wait for her, half still sleeping and feeling heavy even though I had been practicing for an hour an a half by then.

My teacher walks over and looks down at me, I look up at her hoping she'll realize that I really made an effort to go through the practice and that I'm experiencing some resistance, hoping she has the remedy to get over my heaviness. As she's looking at me she smiles and says" the honeymoon is over huh?"

I've been thinking about her words for the past week. "The honeymoon is over" the two year love affair is over, now its just the raw reality of the practice...a lot of willpower!

As I sit here thinking this over I relate this event to my relationship, and what people have always told me about the 'honeymoon' ending after about 2 years into the relationship. Its interesting to see the connection between the yoga practice and the relationship.

In practice you are asked to put your physical effort to have the benefits...over time with commitment you unpack all the gifts the practice holds. Each pose is like a wrapped gift....wrapped with many layers of paper...in order to get to the gift you have to patiently unpack the wrapping, until you are left with the gift. You practice a pose over and over each day peeling the layers of paper until the pose gives itself to you, revelas, upacks its benefits to you.

I feel like relationships are the same, you give yourself to a relationship with full on commitment and over time it gives you back so much. Both have in conmon the fact that you must give yourself fully, you must put yourself into it, through it and stick with it, commit to it full heartedly, despite how you feel and what is going on. And once you go trough it the reward is love, goodness.

Both require patience, devotion, commitment and support. Both overtime unpack its gifts..

When you start something new its always exiting and this creates an energy that helps sustain your commitment...at about two years into, it the 'newness' wears off and the relationship (yoga or loved one) begins! Excpet for now you are deep enough into it to know the gifts it holds and to know that its worth sticking to it.

So i looked up at my teacher and i said "yes the honeymoon is over" and we both laughed.

Im still feeling that way now, a week later, as I write this, but now I know that its ok that it will pass and that i should keep going, keep unpacking. I also know that I should hold on to this knowledge and remind myself anytime I doubt something that I hold dear to my heart (practice, relationship, dreams..you name it)

I am grateful for this piece of knowledge.

What piece of knowledge are you grateful for?