The other night I started back into yoga.  During the school year, it is my weekly hour escape from my responsibilities.

I’m not the most flexible. And I’m sure many of my poses look awkward, but the feeling when I leave is worth it all.

My first night back, I ended up running a bit late. Well actually I got to the class on time but that meant all the “good” spots were taken. My favorite spot is against the wall so my view is the huge windows looking outside.  While I am working through the poses, I can focus outside on the birds, trees, or whatever else catches my eye.

But this night, I ended up in the back of the class room.  My view was … the wall, the exercise balls at the top of the shelves and the door leading to the hallway. Yep. What a view for yoga.

Since I hadn’t been in yoga for about three months, it was a bit harder to get into different poses.  My muscles just didn’t want to go where they needed to be at times.

We were in one pose where we had to look straight ahead on the floor “with your eyes open” the instructor said.  I focused right on the carpet in front of me. As long as I focused on that one spot, I was fine.  Then the instructor said “oh, so and so, you are holding the pose wonderfully.”  What did I do?  I looked up.  I stopped focusing.  I stopped looking at the one spot that was helping me hold my muscles the right way and my pose in the correct form.

My body lost its balance for a quick second, but I was able to quickly recover and focus back on the carpet. Focus on the spot that held me in place.

And that’s when it hit me. How often do we look up to see what someone else has accomplished?  Do we look up to see what is going on around us?  That’s when we lose it. Our balance. our confidence. Our peace. Our contentment.  When all we really need to do is focus. Focus on that one spot that keeps us centered.

For me, it’s my faith.  If I keep myself in the right pose and focused on the right aspect of God, nothing else matters. It doesn’t matter what someone else has accomplished. It doesn’t matter what is happening all around me. Who has what. What I don’t have.   I am grounded into that spot on the carpet of my faith. And allowing myself to be content, be at peace, be in confidence, and in the right balance.

All because I focus on that “carpet” of my life.

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I had written this draft a few months ago and had “forgotten” about it until I started using my blog more regularly to post student writing from a homeschool co-op class I taught this fall. This blog post was exactly what I needed as I look to go back to yoga tonight after a month off because of traveling and holidays. 🙂