I'm currently in the midst of a second yoga teacher training, this time for Forrest Yoga. If you've never heard of Forrest, just a few things to say - 1) Note the two "R's" so named after a person (Ana Forrest) rather than a gathering of trees; 2) It's an all encompassing healing style of yoga - from physical pain to emotional. And I'm learning that often times, these pains are tied very strongly together. Yoga teaches that strong emotional events leave a mark (scar) in an area or part of the body; Forrest is teaching me how to find that scar and replace it with a strong, good energy through breath work and asana practice.
Because of my history with my X and the tough time I had immediately after his death, I was drawn strongly to Forrest classes when I came back to yoga. It was a safe place for me to cry, to yell, or to lion's breath shit out. I knew when I took my first teacher training that at some point, I would go for Forrest as well. And here I am.
Something Ana said this morning rang true to me - that often times, after a loved one dies, we hold onto their ghost, rather than their memory. The moral of that is that it's time I let X go - for both our healing. And I am not gonna lie, it's scary.
I have a lot of guilt still about him - sometimes when I walk Baxter, some memory/sound/smell hits me and I remember he won't walk our boy ever again. I have guilt that I'm living my life for me, still searching for my happy.
And I feel guilty when I start to forget what he sounded like or looked like. He had a way of saying my name that I will always cherish. I'm working on moving that from holding his ghost to me and changing it to a memory I can smile about.
I'm just over halfway done with training and my struggle will be to continue to remove shields that I've put up to protect myself when in reality, they are just keeping me from life. I will also allow X to go. The memories I have of him are enough to last me a lifetime. And it's time for me to get out there and live.
