Keep the Energy Close

I don’t know what the temperature is in that studio. I think my instructor sets the thermostat to suffer. My body requires a generous ten minutes of pre-yoga before pain-yoga begins, so I show up early. This provides me the opportunity to put my yoga Matt in the southeast corner of the room, which is furthest away from the heat machine hanging from the ceiling and also is against a wall, which means one less woman (it’s nearly all women there) that has to stand next to me as I full on Niagara Falls on the floor and kind of everywhere. It’s a real bummer, so bad in fact that at first I did yoga without a shirt but then started wearing a shirt, which increased the heat but prevented the sweat from Niagara-ing, at least a little bit. I might need to see a doctor.

As I’m warming up I hear the door open. In my peripheral I see her walk over to the thermostat. The studio has been pre-heating and I’ve been pre-perspiring. “There she is, death in black Lulu Lemon, holding a scythe.” beep beep beep she bumps up the temp. I walk over, knock her hand away from the thermostat, and without breaking eye contact turn it down to 71°. “Not today, death. Not today.”

In my head I do that. Outside of my head I sigh and accept my fate.

It’s not as though I’m a victim – I pay money to go there and suffer. I used to do the same thing when I bought cigarettes, but at least with smokes you stand outside in the cold while you kill yourself.

We begin standing and for about 40 minutes we work through various poses that all have fantastic names. Tadasana, uttanasana, virabhadrasana. I bow and say, “and also with yousana” because I’m an idiot. After 6 months of work I am genuinely tickled at my body’s ability to stretch, lengthen, and actually hold some of the poses that I couldn’t even visually parse when I started. I still shake and struggle. My right hip exists in perpetual protest, refusing to open up. The backs of my calves feel like they have steel rods in place of stretchable muscle. I check my pose in the mirror, ewww that’s not great, adjust, shift, fall. Grab my foot again and pull it out in front of me, the sweat making my hands slip off, grab again, stretch my leg straight-ish in front of my torso, imagining that one day my leg actually might be straight or maybe just snap and quit.

Then on our backs we do a number of core-strengthening moves and backbends, all of which suck. I glance over and a few women are holding poses that astound me. My eyes quickly go back to the ceiling so as to not be “that guy” at the yoga studio. Boy oh boy do I never want to be that guy.

In-between poses on our backs, which are difficult and require bursts of energy, we lie down on our backs and rest for 10 seconds. Savasana.

“Keep your energy close,” she tells us. “Arms at your sides, legs down, breathe slowly, be still. All that good work you’re doing – keep the energy close, keep it in, let it cook.”

I think about all the gold I gave away so fast, the mysteries of myself that I rushed out the door and exposed too early and too easily, instead of letting those things percolate, develop, hone. Often I’ve been quick to tell stories that are sacred, hoping to be relatable or appear to be a certain kind of man, instead of waiting until trust has been built, understanding deepened, where those stories would be grasped in the context of who I am and honored as I honor them. And I think about all of the people to whom I gave more energy than what was good for me, efforts to win them over, convince them of something, or when I tried to change people into who or what I thought they should be.

Keep your energy close, Joshua. You’ve done such good work. Take the time to grow your gift into its best shape and form before giving it to someone or to the world.

I say the same things at home. This one kid is a real jerk to one of my boys. He was telling me stories of how this kid talked to him. I told him, “Great news! You don’t have to be friends with everyone! You can be kind, respectful, compassionate, but you don’t need to invite that kid to your party, and you don’t need to go to their house to play if you don’t want to. (I’ve met this particular kid. Have you ever met a kid and went ugh, this kid sucks. You know that you really shouldn’t hate a kid, but you kind of do, and you wonder why you hate that kid, then you meet their parents? Then you go ah, got it.)

So that’s what I tell my boys. You are gifts to the world. Take your time. Keep growing and go slowly. You don’t need to be anything for anyone; just be as much you as you can be.

The energy of who you are, Joshua, all you’ve grown to be, walked through, been given, endured, gleaned, refined – all of it is a gift. Find the people and places who will receive it well, and when it’s not right, keep it close.