Ten years ago, today, I stepped onto a yoga mat for the first time: the twelfth day, of the twelfth month, of 2012.
12/12/12 was a substantial, significant date.
It was the last date of its kind where all three numerals in a date were the same. It wouldn’t happen again for more than 80 years, and I won’t be around to see it.
It was only the day before that I noticed the date and realized I had to do something substantial on such a significant date.
I chose Bikram Hot Yoga and, for the next three years in particular, the practice substantially altered my life. I was more than regular; I was committed to the posture routine over 90 minutes in the hot room that had become almost a second home. It was first a struggle, but aren’t many of the things that are good for you?
My body, my mind, and my breath changed.
I was moving confidently, thinking with clarity, and breathing out my problems rather than holding them in. I learned a great deal about myself, and many of those lessons continue.
I’ve have struggled off and on with consistency. I haven’t been back on the mat lately, certainly not as often as I would have liked, nor as often as I should. When the pandemic lockdown settled in around here (at a time when I really needed yoga) I never got back and took to other forms of routine exercise.
And though I now fumble for excuses, I can only think fondly on what my yoga commitment did for me at a time I really needed it.
10 years: a lot has changed.
I have changed.
I know it. It feel it, I breathe it
It is significant.
12/12/2022 j.g.l.
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