This Day

Thursday mornings I go to my yoga class at 8:15, so I didn't get up early to do my own practice. I looove this yoga class--the instructor, Donna, is all heart and warmth and awesomeness. The class is Baptiste yoga, and it's in a hot room. Lots of vinyasa at the beginning, then balancing poses and backbends. Ah, the backbends.

So today we did Camel pose, and that was when I started to cry. I cried, just leaking silent tears down my face, through Warrior 3, stopped a bit for Tree pose, then started right back up again for Bow and Wheel. Lordy. I think it was mostly about not having an open heart, and feeling like I am so critical, particularly of Nora. It helped me really have good intention today, though--the class stayed in my head throughout my busy day. Then tonight, I asked Nora to practice her violin while I was making dinner, and she just lost it. Just total, ugly, yelling melt-down, primarily because dinner was stuffed portabello mushrooms, but then also because of the violin practicing, and because I wouldn't let her quit violin, and because I put salad in her lunch and she had "already had salad this week", and on, and on, and on. Instead of rising to her level of anger, though, I reminded myself about facing her with love, and with an open heart. I asked her calmly to get out the violin, I didn't respond to her demands for an explanation of why I would cook something that she hates for dinner, and finally I said "I'm going to go get the mail, because I need a little break from you. Maybe when I get back you can practice." She found a way to wind herself down, finally, and got through her practicing. I was really glad that I had managed to keep my cool, because I know if I had yelled at her, or sent her to have a time out, she couldn't have recovered on her own, and I would have felt much worse than I did.

Thanks, yoga!