Another yoga class taken and as usual I feel much more in my self than I was before stepping into the studio and taking my place amongst the other practitioners upon my lavender mat for the evening. I've been taking plenty of yoga classes these past few months through a student semester pass with Lila Yoga in State College, PA. So many things have happened at the studio in the process of my life in the past couple of years where I have reached a more vibrant understanding in the procession of my daily life.
The past two weeks have been particularly stressful and to have had the opportunity to participate in a Wednesday night yoga session with Josh DiCaglio as teacher and I as pupil was a wonderful experience. The day itself was full of writings and readings for my current semester schedule and I found solace from the structure of my day, taking a break, in the movement of my physical self through asana that brought a sense of understanding.
I admit I've been rather tough on myself for some of the thoughts and feelings I've had lately, questioning my faith and life path, my own inner narrative, that story playing within us all, informing the lives we live, the actions we take. The past few days have brought thoughts of regret towards a certain individual as I end this fall semester at Penn State University. There is one night in particular two years ago where I set out to meet up with a young woman, within the crowd of a musical concert. I wanted to see her. I wanted to have fun with her during the concert through dance and to hopefully progress towards having a conversation outside of the environment of music. My expectations in myself and her were not what happened in reality. I now would say I froze in the situation of seeing her and I, for whatever reason, could not return a single word to her when I had the opportunity to do so. I instead rested with myself, alone though others surrounded me, in the music, which was soothing in itself as worry faded away through the waves of sound that embraced my body. Not fully approaching her as I had wished exists as my regret, or so I have viewed these thoughts interpreting this night of my past.
This memory played in my head as I lay on the floor of the studio with my eyes closed in Savasana or corpse pose towards the end of class, as the session was concluding. Josh spoke, I listening to his suggestions to the nature of the "I" and Unity of all of things as the vision of that night echoed in my headspace.
As I listened to what he was saying, I found an acceptance of the past and understood that perhaps all that goes on in this world works in conjunction with each other as we ourselves being here in the world have only so little control over things as we are. Yes, we can say that there are certain causes to where we stand in this constantly evolving present moment, but what is able to be interpreted by our tools of language through spoken words, mathematics, and scientific knowledge may only scratch the surface of what is. Our explanations are inadequate to encompass the sheer vastness of the observable universe, at least at the time of this writing.
Returning to my stream of consciousness, their exist thoughts and feelings of regret that happen within me, but to believe these thoughts upon the past as I tell myself, " It should have been different, because I know...," can easily get us stuck constantly reorganizing what could have happened, a cognitive time-suck. Regret implies that there is genuine care in the analysis of a past event and is applicable to creating a better framework of personal action in the future. But, to become stuck in regret without moving towards acceptance is the problem I'm speaking about here and the want of the "I" to assign responsibility, justified or not to past moments we often consider, must grow into greater forms of awareness.
We occur, but know not the totality of how or what we do. The more we grow into ourselves, the greater the tool of meditation produces a calming feeling in embracing what is. We can come to a place where these thoughts simply are as they are in our minds and that to have had feelings of regret is nothing to be ashamed of. It's completely fine to be concerned with the past, but living from the point of view of accepting that you do not know how things truly are or should be is only progress in our growth as a being of God, Universe or Whatever.