Wednesday, June 06, 2007

Learning how to breath again

I had my first prenatal yoga class at lunch today. I've done yoga a handful of times throughout my life; there was the kundalini yoga class when I was 15 at the rec center. Verdict: it made me fall asleep, and was basically a vehicle for the instructor to sell his goofy relaxation tapes. More recently, one of my coworkers got me to join her for a drop-in class a couple of times last year. Verdict: ouch! Yoga hurts my arms!

This class is all about the breathing and various pelvic stretching. At 19 weeks, I am the least pregnant in the group; most of the women are 30 weeks and up, a few are 26-28 weeks. I was the only one who didn't really need the pile of pillows that were placed at the head of each yoga mat, not that I didn't appreciate them. I was also the only one who could lie on my back for the relaxation portion at the very end of the class. That's when the weirdest thing happened.

The midwife leading the class instructed us to breath in, thinking of all of the good and loving things in our lives. No problem--I've got lots of good and loving. Then she told us to breathe out, pushing out all of the stress, all of the tension, the negativity, the disappointment...and I lost it. I started to cry. I wasn't bawling, in fact I don't think anyone noticed, but I couldn't stop the tears from coming, streaming down the sides of my face into my ears. I'm not one to bottle things up. I cry pretty regularly, I tell my loved ones when I'm bummed out or pissed off, I've always considered myself pretty much fully in touch with my feelings. So why was I so surprised at this outburst? Why did I have this extreme reaction to breathing out the sadness? It was really weird, and caught me totally off guard. I wonder what there is in my life right now, today, that I'm not dealing with?

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Consider yourself hugged.
Love,
Mom

Deborah said...

It's easier to breath when I'm being hugged...

Oberon said...

.......chorizo burrito......mmmmmm.

Deborah said...

Um, ok. I'm not entirely sure what my tearful prenatal yoga experience has to do with chorizo burritos, but...yum! Count me in!

lizelliott said...

sometimes i think crying is a way our body rids itself of some stored up, inexplicable, not necessarily sad emotion that it can't rid of by words or mental processing because its on a deeper level. so its a relief when it happens because then we know the internal load is lighter, even if we have no idea what the load is or was. like sweat or pee or something, tears are a fluid that in health should sometimes be shed from our bodies as waste. so i say this is a sign that alls well...not that there is a potential problem inside the deb.

verdict: yay tears?

Anonymous said...

God counts the tears of women.

Deborah said...

I think you're right, Liz. It's not always sad things or stress that make a person cry. Sometimes it's just the mind's way of eliminating emotional waste. Normally, I really enjoy a good cry, and lord knows that since I've been pregnant, I can get a good cry out of just about anything. This just caught me SO off guard--I don't usually cry in public, and I tend to get some kind of a warning before the tears come. Plus, I've had a lot of specific stress in the past few weeks and I thought I's been dealing with it all very appropriately and very fully. Turns out I hadn't.

So verdict: yay tears, but maybe next time they wait until I'm back home first?

As far as God counting women's tears, I don't quite know how to respond to that. But I'm pretty sure God has enough crap going on in the world that God ought to be dealing with, and God certainly doesn't need to waste anytime counting my tears. I've got the best family and friends in the world to look after me, and God can go deal with the important stuff like war and hunger and AIDS.