Hopeless.

When that word comes up, well, it always seems like something bad. But recently in a yoga class it came to mean something different to me. I hate to do this, because it feels like I’m choking up my English Major here, but let’s deconstruct the word.

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Simple actually. The removal of hope from a situation. Settling to accept that a situation is just what it is. No need to hope for anything different. No grass being greener some place else. Nothing better just around the bend. Where you are is just fine. Perfect maybe. Exactly where you should be.

This teaching came to me just as I was grappling with my injured hand. I was frustrated that I was so injured I couldn’t even go into downward dog without pain. I had to modify to the very unfamiliar dolphin pose.

I was hoping for something different.

Along with this, I’ve had this long misunderstanding of yoga blocks. Really since I started practicing 15 years ago. I always saw them as a sign of weakness.

I’m not even going to recap how very, very  wrong I was about blocks.  I’m not even going to point out the obvious of how “blocks” came to represent something completely about acceptance. How the blocks are really about forward motion. Nope, I won’t.

On my mat, we moved into a lunge pose and the pain ran straight up from my hand to my head. I couldn’t support myself on  my hand. The rest of the class was now releasing their arms into the empty spaces above them to fly. I was stuck. Grounded my by foolishness. Grounded by hope.

Finally I embraced hopelessness and reached for a block. I comfortably rested my forearm on the block and found my sky. I flew my hands and suddenly loved the block for what it was now giving me and let go of the idea that it was somehow taking something away from me.

With hopeless in my heart, I accepted that me, the block, my mat and the sky were all perfect. Exactly as we needed to be.