Diary of a Yoga retreat - Day 7 - am class

It's Saturday morning here in Bali. It's also full moon. In my old life that used to mean a full moon party here on the beach in Bali. All night long dancing. Copious amounts of drugs, needing to take the next week off.

Now, for me, in my new life, my yoga life, I find myself taking a sleep in and a coffee in bed and reading my book. Looking out over the picturesque Balinese landscape I feel rather contented. Good.

I was just telling my friend yesterday, that I have left go of that old party life. I am holding on rather firmly to my new family life and going forward in that way. I could not be happier with this change.

Some people, when they heard I was coming to Bali by myself for 2 weeks to practice yoga thought me selfish. To take this time for myself. But the way I am seeing it is that after six years of being a mother, my daughter in now six and a half. When I am telling the people on this course the ages of my children, girl 6 and boy 3.5 I see them looking at me like I am the mother of children that are no longer very small. Not babies, my kids are children now. We have left that baby stage. We have made it.

I have not had a break until now. I have left my daughter for 2 nights previous to this trip and my little boy for one night. This is the first time that I have allowed myself to do so. The way I see it is that it is a lifeline I have given myself with this trip.

I was really exhausted from the relentless and neverending day to day daily grind of our life. I am not saying that our life at home is so bad or torturous. It is definitely not that. It is relentless though. My children get out of bed at 5am. Every day without fail. 5am is a very early hour. Day after day after day. This means that either my husband or I arise with our children.

90% of the time it is me that gets us with them. I also want to go to yoga class which is very early so I get up with them. My husband can catch a few extra minutes before I slink off into the morning light and my practice awaits.

After six years of this routine I found myself feeling tired and fatigued. Just abit weary. Need a break.

During a plane flight as the stewardess enacts the safety procedure they always say that when the oxygen masks fall down that parents should place them on their faces first, then the children. I used to question the sense in that. Their thinking is that once the parents have oxygen they can calmly deal with what their babies need. I did not understand this until now.

This trip has been my oxygen mask. I am breathing full clean air right now. For a whole two weeks in fact. When I get back to my family they will receive their oxygen masks from me. I will enable them the full gift of breath that is life.

When we began this retreat I wrote that the inner stand up comic within me was very very noisy in the pranayama. I have put that comic to sleep and now I am filled with light. When we now commence our pranayama ( controlled breathing exercises) which we do every day here, my mind is far more quiet than at the beginning. My spine just lengthens without the teacher saying anything. My head rises toward the heavens, just like that and it feels so good. To have the space within my chest for my heart to flower feels natural and right.

When we finished yesterday's led class and we lay down I felt still. I felt my body on the ground. I felt the air around me. I felt the breath in my lungs and nostrils and I felt still.

People say that looking for stillness is like looking for peace of mind and very hard to find if you are looking. Mostly they say it will find you once you stop looking. Yesterday for a brief moment during sarvasana I felt it. I felt still and my mind felt quiet. For just a short amount of time because then I started thinking about feeling that and that was not quiet.. I did feel peaceful though, however shortlived it was and it felt great

I thank my husband for being a good guy and allowing me this time. He has not been cranky about this trip at all and that is quite tricky. No guilt from him. He is very happy for me to be happy. I am lucky. Today and yesterday I feel free. I will wrap my family in this freedom when I get home.

I make light about the feelings of bliss and freedom that yoga bestow on me but I only make jokes as I feel so good. If I felt yucky it would be far harder to jest about the goodness inside. We are all good inside it is just finding the place that allows us to say it and access it. Yoga is a tool for finding oneself and feeling good.

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