It's All In The Hips

I just returned from yoga class. Something has been brewing in my hip joints for a while and I kept assuming it would go away soon, but alas, it has not. Child's pose has become uncomfortable for fuck sake, my favourite most comfy pose! In trying to understand this I have so far come up with two theories: either all those years of ballet have caught up with me OR I am in the worst shape of my life. I'm inclined to believe it's the latter. Despite my best intentions, (reading books about healthy eating, scheduling pilates sessions into my daybook, visulaizing myself practicing yoga daily), I've been taking shit care of myself. On my way home from yoga class I bought a bag of chocolate cookies and Nibs, and I haven't so much as done the pilates one-hundred since mid-winter.

It's not always like this. I go through periods where self-care is a priority. But that is certainly not the norm for me, and from what I can tell, it's the same situation for many of us humans. In one of her stand-up acts, Ellen Degeneres pointed out that it's kind of a joke that we go to yoga at all. I think she was referring to the fact that the modern human is always rushing around, and one hour a week of stillness isn't really gonna cut it. But I see it as a joke in a different way as well. When I look at the patterns of my own life, I see that taking good care of myself isn't really important to me. On a conscious level I think it is, because logically it should be. But clearly I'm fighting against some deep rooted nature, some inexplicable drive to self-destruction. Wasn't it Freud who said that we all desire to return the animate to the inanimate? That essentially, we all have a death wish?

Nevertheless, a part of me clearly wants to care. And maybe with time that part will grow stronger. It just feels so gross trying to fight yourself all the time, and I'm kind of thinking... fuck it. I feel like I should be producing and achieving... reveling in concrete things. Self-care doesn't really produce results the way finishing a painting does. There isn't much satisfaction in it, because the benefits are taken for granted. When I am this honest with myself I sure feel like a poser yoga teacher.