Spaciousness (or: A Theory of Relativity)

In the book What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty, she talks about the idea of spacious days.

What a concept!!!!

Mostly, my days feel jam-packed to me, without a moment to spare for anything. That’s how I usually think about them, at least. My to-do list is longer than my arm. I suspect that other mothers feel this way as well, since today I heard my friend Donna (also a mother) say those exact words.

In yoga, spaciousness is sought in your body through postures, in your mind through meditation. I’ve been searching for spaciousness through yoga for 4 years now (I’ll let you know when I find it).

🙂

Four years seems like kind of a long time to me…but as a percentage of my age, it’s not that long really. Could it be that all I really need is an adjustment of perspective?

Back to yoga class: this week, our instructor Kristen happened to mention that there was a period of her life that she would gladly relive, which sparked a conversation among the women in the class on this topic. As some of them mentioned ages that they would be interested in repeating, I did a quick review: high school? No way! Early twenties? No thank you! I soon realized that I couldn’t think of any time period of my life that I would want to live through again, but then I reframed the question: What was a happy memory?

When I asked myself this question, I got a very clear image in my mind. It was in the summer: August 1991. It was in the first apartment that I shared with my husband after we got married. The sun was streaming in through the large windows in the dining room, shining on my infant son, born just a couple of weeks prior. I remember being in that room, gazing at the baby, standing in the sun, and realizing that I’d never been happier than I was at that moment. Twenty years later, I can still stand in that room in my mind’s eye, and still feel that happiness just as strongly as I did that day.