It’s been one of those weeks. You know the sort.
The kind of week where you feel like you can’t catch your breath. Where everything is moving so fast and furious you barely have time to think, and even worse – most of what’s coming at you is bad news or in some way negative.
It’s so easy to get caught up in the frustration of a week like that, or a day like that, or even just a moment like that. Far, far too easy. And then you start actually becoming an embodiment of that frustration to all those around you, especially those who are close. We’ve all been there and we know where that goes.
This week was a major project launch at work – the culmination of about an 8 month long project that effects every single person on staff and all of the members of our association. I won’t go into any details here, suffice it to say that any launch – regardless of how smooth or problematic it may be – tends to be a stressful situation when it’s a launch of such high visibility.
My respite from this stressful week at work, my oasis of calm-ness and grounding, was to be my attendance at my second yoga class on Thursday. I decided after Memorial Day when I threw my back out that I needed something to really work on my flexibility, because as a 6′2″ guy who has never had great posture or flexibility – and works all day in front of a computer, I’m on a path to some serious pain down the line if I don’t start taking some corrective measures.
The first class, last week, was awesome. Then yesterday, I manage to rearrange my day’s schedule just so, so that I was able to take a break and head over to the yoga studio a few blocks away from my office. I got there 15 minutes early, and sat down outside the door of the studio to remove my shoes. While doing so, someone else strolled right past me into the studio – shoes and all – and took a spot on the floor. As I got up to enter the studio myself, the teacher stopped me and said the class was full. There was no more room for any other mats.
And that… that moment was ground zero.
I sulked out of the building and went back to my office, going through the motions of a workout at my office gym but really just so angry I was ready to break things. Lots of things. Big, expensive things, that couldn’t ever be fixed.
But of course, how can you not laugh at that? I mean – YOGA, I get shut out of yoga, and it makes me so infuriated that I can barely handle myself. Even in the midst of my anger I couldn’t keep from realizing how ridiculous it was. Not very namaste at all.
So I took a deep breath. And I exhaled.
And I let my mind go elsewhere. Clearly, this place that it had been occupying up until that point was not the place that it needed to be right now.
My mind landed in Phuket. Amanda and I honeymooned in there, in Thailand, in early 2009. I could tell endless stories about the place and about how wonderful a voyage it all was, but all you really need to know is that it was such a highlight of my entire life that I still daydream of it constantly.
It’s a good escape. Everybody needs one.
This is meant to be your reminder to exhale.
It’s Friday and the weekend has come. The World Cup starts today. Let it go, whatever it is. I’m not the type of person who would actually say namaste, but if I was – now is when I would say it.
