in awe of kindness

You wouldn’t have believed yoga Wednesday night. We had to partner up for one of the poses. It was one of the scariest things I’ve ever done. I was so anxious about it. I guess my fear was written all over my face because Dillon (my all time favorite yoga instructor) looked at me and said "I’ll partner with you". He commented that he knew that I was very anxious about the pose and that I was more concerned about being person 2 than person 1. This was the pose:

Person 1 sits on the floor in cobbler pose (soles of the feet touching, knees splayed out towards the floor). Person 2 stands behind them against the wall. With their hands person 2 presses down on person 1 shoulders for a deep stretch (this part was awesome and easy!), then leaning against the wall, person 2 steps onto the inner thighs of person 1 and helps to press person 1’s knees further down towards the ground by standing on them. This was the part that made me anxious…I was sure I would snap someone in half. The option was to just use your hands to help person 1’s knees down, but Dillon wouldn’t let me do that, he made me stand on him. It was so far beyond my realm of comfort. It sure pressed the boundaries of my mental comfort zone.

It was the first class that I’ve been to ever that worked my insides (mental) more than my physical being. He also made us go into shoulder stand (against the wall) it went well for me. By the time the class was over I felt extremely triumphant. At the end of class I told Dillon I would be putting this on my out of the box scorecard. He thought that was hilarious.

Now I’m not saying I look forward to the opportunity of doing the partner cobbler pose again, but I am not nearly as frightened of it as I was yesterday.

It was fantastic to have someone believe in me like that. It's strange, but I was saying to Rob yesterday, in all my years it never occurred to me that I had not yet seen, or witnessed true kindness, non-judgmental kindness, loving kindness, and then to be in its presence is so truly awesome, and overwhelming, it brings me to tears. I took for granted that growing up going to church and growing up in a religious community that I had witnessed all of the kindness God fearing human beings were capable of, and honestly it had left me unimpressed and mistrusting of most people.

This yoga class has obviously affected me tremendously. I just can't describe the feelings...but I'm trying!