Changemakers Confidential: Maven Musings
Real stories. Real people. Real change.
Welcome to Changemakers Confidential, where we share real stories from real people on real change.
This week ushers in a change from your regularly-scheduled Changemakers update. In addition to continuing our inspiring and insightful change stories, I, as your Chief Change Maven, am going to weigh in periodically with change musings of my own. I’ve often got a nugget or two swirling around in my brain, and what better place to share those nuggets than with our very own Changemakers community? And so, without too much pretext and preamble, here are some change maven musings for your thought and consideration this week.
I have a yoga practice of over two decades, which is wild to say, because the only things I’ve done for longer than that are be married and be alive. I’ve been on an extended hiatus because of the pandemic, but over the past month or so found myself called back to my mat for in-studio classes. My Self wanted the heat, the teacher-led practice, to be alongside again a community of practitioners, breathing, moving, and sweating together through the poses. It was time.
The shift in me was immediate. I saw how I’d been telling myself a convincing story around how I needed a break, wanted to do other things, was over yoga culture, all of which were true on some level, yet were not accurately my truth. Yoga is one of the ways my body was meant to move, and one of the ways my being needs to move energy around and through my system, and I had been missing it terribly.
As soon as I stepped on my mat, I felt the old, familiar feeling take over, and all of the cultivated, heavily-practiced postures, transitions, and breath came back to me like they’d never left in the first place (which, of course, they hadn’t). I realized the value of things that endure and how I rely on them to do so, to be there when I come back, renewed and ready to pick that mantle back up again. It always feels good when you show up for yourself in the exact right way that you need to.
What’s been interesting is, even as I paused my active practice on the mat for multiple months, how directly that practice translated to my life. Living in a pandemic has been the ultimate yoga practice, and I’m grateful to have had multiple decades of yoga practice to draw from. Every moment was a call to the present moment. in spite of the multiple things that could happen in a day: one of the kids had close contact at school, a friend or family member got sick, masks were mandated, recommended, then mandated again. Favorite restaurants closed temporarily, others permanently. People got wary of each other, often crossing over to the other side of the road to avoid close contact. Hair was in a topknot most days, makeup became a distant memory, and joggers and rib tanks became uncomfortably de rigeur. So many things made me want to fall out of the yoga pose that was required in that moment, to hold my breath until it was over, or to just roll up my mat and go home, disconnecting via stiff drinks, Netflix marathons, and Amazon.
Thankfully, I found myself remembering to pause a fair amount, to close my eyes, and take a few breaths. This, too, shall pass. To get up and away from the computer and walk down and back to Delaware Avenue (about a mile roundtrip from my house). To brush my teeth, to have another cup of coffee, to pet my dog, and to stand barefoot out in the backyard, letting my toes spread wide and dig into the earth beneath them. My life became the yoga practice. At times, those poses got pretty damn advanced, pretty damn quickly. Poses like the toxic relationships in my life coming into sharp relief, patterns of emotional withdrawal and shut-down, vehement disagreements about vaccination status, abject loneliness, isolation, and sadness…damn tough yoga poses.
Yet, I somehow managed to continue breathing, kept holding that pose for a moment past when I wanted to snap back, shut down, quit, walk away and never come back. Fuck them and fuck it. In those moments of hold I was able to do, I felt the release which created the much-needed space within. Space for pause, reflection…grace. Starting again. And again. And yet again.
One of my favorite teachers at my studio in south Minneapolis shared the following nugget in practice that has lingered with me over the past week, that I’d like to share with all of you here:
Stamina is required for mindfulness.
It got me thinking about how stamina, being able to hold the pose for one breath longer, to come back to practice when it’s been so long, or when you don’t want to figure out how to fit it back into your life, or you’d rather distract yourself with other pretend priorities that seem more important in the moment. Stamina is the discipline to show up for yourself time and time again because you know there’s something deeper there for you. And that deep is where the seeds of mindfulness are sown. Seeds that need regular water, soil, sun, and the space to reach, to spread, to grow, that - in time - yield the fruits of mindfulness that bring benefit for our entire being. That we can offer as a gift to our loved ones, to our communities, to others in need, our fellow humans who need connection, love, and care as much as we do.
If you loved reading this update and would like to hear more real stories from real people on real change, please subscribe to Changemakers Confidential, and share it with other changemakers you know. Thanks for reading - see you next week!
Warmly,
Kristina
Chief Change Maven, Changemakers Confidential