Diary of a Postpartum Yogi #3: Shapes of Living

Lindsay & Heron in Sedona

Yoga class this morning focused on asana (yoga postures) as a way to learn about the intricacies of our bodies in each shape. Who am I in tadasana (mountain)? How about trikonasana (triangle)? And savasana (corpse)? Poignantly, the practice of yoga is never really about physical shapes. In life we play out many roles. As we do, we learn about ourselves. Who am I as a woman? A parent? A business owner? A partner? Some roles are chosen and some born into. Each role contains possibility for growth and many points of limitation. And, just like each asana shape connects with and informs all of the other shapes, so does each identity in life inform the others—a kaleidoscope of roles, at its best integrated into some semblance of a whole.

Who am I as a woman? A parent? A business owner? A partner? Each role contains possibility for growth and many points of limitation.

Speaking of roles…I am still getting to know myself as a parent. I did not realize quite how difficult things were until our kid turned six months old. I have more time to exercise now and work at the studio. I even have snippets of time to sit with my partner and chat. I have learned how to optimize the three-nap schedule that our lives now circle around. (Thank you, routine!!!)

Oh, I’ve been thinking lately. Life has been tremendously difficult. I didn’t even realize.

I think we often downplay this transition to parenthood since the majority of humans go through it. It’s as if to say, because this isn’t really an unusual thing that I am doing, my hardship is not worthy of empathy. But I like to think of it inversely. What?! This many people LABOR AND BIRTH A CHILD?! And then don’t sleep through the night for 3–157 months?! And are expected to parent lovingly and adore their partner and maintain some kind of personal life?! Frankly, it is miraculous. 

And really, what I am trying to say is that just because it is a shape that “most people” practice or a role that “most people” have, does that really make it any less amazing? Any less meaningful? Next time I am in tadasana, I am going to think twice. The earth beneath my feet, the slight squeeze of my inner legs, shoulders resting on my back, eyes gazing forward. This shape is miraculous. Parenting is miraculous. 

…just because it is a shape that “most people” practice or a role that “most people” have, does that really make it any less amazing? Any less meaningful?

I have felt some guilt about not being home as much lately with our baby. And yet—speaking of how one role can inform another—my twenty-something self taught me that I feel best when I make time for yoga, contemplation, and creativity. And I don’t mean this in a sexist-women’s-maganize-get-a-pedicure kind of way. I mean that showing up for myself is survival. 

I think that toxic positivity culture seeps in at times and tries to convince me that I have full autonomy over the ways I show up in my various roles. But this just isn’t true. Anyone who has experienced oppression or trauma knows that there are many unfair and downright painful external factors that we do not control individually, and legitimately affect us. There is a wonderful New Yorker cartoon that speaks poignantly (and tragically) to this point.

“This is what your unsolicited advice sounds like,” Natalya Lobanova, New Yorker, August 25, 2020.

What it takes to show up in the world (and what that looks like) is different for everyone, and changes as we change. It is the result of our roles, chosen and unchosen. Just as how our asana practice is a beautiful multiverse of variations. It is never about what it looks like for someone else, and there is no perfection to attain. (This is a hard belief to shed…thanks Western culture.) It is about how our external actions resonate with our internal compass. It about turning inside again, and again, and again.

What it takes to show up in the world (and what that looks like) is different for everyone, and changes as we change. It is the result of our roles, chosen and unchosen. Just as how our asana practice is a beautiful multiverse of variations.

It is awkward to navigate all that we control and all that we do not,  all that we know and even more what we don’t know, and may never know. The most freeing lesson from my pregnancy loss and subsequent pregnancy is that I have no freaking idea why things are the way they are. It is not my job to know. It is my job to show up as I am, to hold myself with tenderness whenever possible, and—when I am strong enough—to reach out my hand in service.

This is a lesson from yoga I bring to my role as a parent, when I can. This is my yoga practice.