Last week, I planned to attend my Friday afternoon yoga class that’s become a coveted ritual. Friday was also my deadline for a magazine feature story. As the day went by, I knew that in order to go to yoga, I would need to stop writing and then return to the article after class. But I knew taking the break in writing would interrupt my writing flow. So I kept writing and submitted the story.
It occurred to me the next week — sitting on a yoga mat actually — that I used the same word that’s synonymous with yoga to describe my writing: FLOW … I had traded one flow for another.
In my mind, I’ve always linked writing with running. Running helps me process emotions and things on my mind. Writing does the same in that it helps me gets those processed emotions on paper and out of my mind, allowing me to make sense of the world. … There’s a flow to running and I often get lost in it. That same thing happens with writing.
Yoga is all about flow … moving through a series of poses that are connected by breath. When you allow your mind and body to fully embrace the practice, yoga becomes very meditative … much like writing and running does for me.
And as I’ve started practicing more yoga, I’m feeling how all three activities are beginning to link — flow continuously — within me.