Yoga Bond
I remember the first day of my first yoga teacher training like it was yesterday. I was running late, coming from a hard day at work and entered that yoga room to find it filled with women. I vividly remember thinking to myself at that point… awesome, this is the perfect recipe for disaster: take 32 women plus two female yoga teachers, put them in one room and bring everybody at the edge of their physical and psychical ability (which tends to happen a lot in the first intensive 200 yoga hours). I literally started to count the seconds until things get messy. I think this says a lot about myself at that point in life… The good news is that I was terribly wrong, the bad news (although, this might be also good) was that my ego had to take (at least) one hit during and after that time….
My girls and I still sometimes ask ourselves what exactly happened during those 200 hours and try to find some sort of explanation for what forged a bond and a friendship like the one we have today. We are all very different, we literally come from all over the world, have radically different backgrounds and still always find a way to understand and to support each other, to be present and connected. 5 years later we have done and seen it all, the beautiful, the good, the bad and the ugly: yoga classes and festivals, injuries, illnesses, funerals, leaving the city, parties, weddings, and babies. Despite it all (or maybe thanks to it) our bond just gets stronger every day.
At times we help each other grow through sharing our experiences. If the phone rings we pick up and carry each other through whatever is going on. Sometimes things get spooky when I call somebody (my friends know I do not like phone calls and I am not the one to just call somebody) … She mostly answers crying asking me how did I know just when to call? The same is valid with me… I used to hide away to heal my wounds or celebrate my wins, but this is not an option anymore. The girls will find me and either sit with me in the mud or make me throw a party for two (or three… or more). When I am ready to get out in the world again, they will make my reentering memorable.
We are sometimes out of sight until one of us just happens to be in the area, give a retreat or find a cool yoga teacher training. In those moments we pick up exactly where we left it. It feels we have just seen each other yesterday, although that “yesterday” was more than two years ago.
It is not always flowers, rainbows, and sunshine. Sometimes we give and receive unfiltered honesty, the one that hurts so bad, because it is so true and it is given with so much love and humility that the ego receiving it bursts into tears. Sometimes we mirror (or get mirrored on) the ugly and hidden parts and we see ourselves and our work in progress in the reaction. Sometimes we hold space to tell each other our deepest fears, to cry it all out, to vent or to complain (yes yogis do that too). Sometimes we just sit together with the pain, when words and actions are not enough to describe, to hold or to mend it.
And then there are those moments when we are laughing together with hurting jaws and bellies, until tears. Those moments where we can all be kids again and take over a deserted playground (until we get busted by an intrigued child), when we are making our insider yoga jokes or just full-hearted laugh about our flaws. Those shared moments of lightness, joy, and love for life.
Our yoga bond is all of this and much more… If I could, I would go back in time, and tell my younger self entering the yoga room, to relax, breathe in deep and completely out, and enjoy this beautiful crazy mind-blowing lifelong shared ride with the amazing women in there.
My ladies, this one is for you 😉!!!