What if You’re not Ready to Spring into the New Year?

By Margaret Gallen, MS, RYT-200

What if you’re not ready to spring into the new year? I confess, I’m not. This year by mid-December I couldn’t think through all of the tasks, parties, obligations and preparations I had to do, meet, ready, and accomplish before Christmas. My schedule was crowded, but like an old-fashioned wall calendar it was as if, in my mind, it ended in December.

My role at CPC is as a health educator and yoga instructor. I create workshops and teach classes on a number of topics, but my specialty is dealing with stress. That means -you guessed it- the times when my personal life gets busy are often the times when I’m called upon to hold space, bring calm, and teach techniques for individuals to connect with their body, or manage being overwhelmed or dysregulated. As a result, I’m always working on maintaining my boundaries, evaluating my capacity, increasing my threshold of tolerance- when I can-and soothing the feelings of stress which inevitably come.

One of my favorite offerings to provide is a series of yoga classes called Yoga for Body and Soul. Last summer I began designing the offering with Rev. Beth at United Christian Parish (UCP). While they aren’t one of our Center for Pastoral Counseling (CPC) sites, we develop relationships in any faith-based spaces that are looking to add our specialties to their community work. When I met with Rev. Beth last spring to discuss starting a spiritual yoga class, I deeply resonated with her vision of creating a space for parishioners and neighbors to connect with their faith through movement. We’ve been running two classes a week of Yoga for Body and Soul since last summer. Every week I feel lucky to have found such a great partner, such a great community, such a great space to teach a yoga class that acknowledges faith in such a direct way.

Each class in the series is themed to be spiritually supportive and interfaith. Pulling together religious verses, yoga teachings, poems and other works of art that are appropriate for each class; crafting a playlist with matching physical movements that will work to cultivate the intention of the class- and work for each of the bodies that enter the room- isn’t without challenge. It requires a lot of my mental gears to be simultaneously turning both in preparation and during the class. So when we enter such full and holy religious seasons as Advent and Christmas, when so many seasonal and cultural activities commence, I can reach my threshold of what I can process. When I add in the general life coordination: holiday decorating, gift giving, hosting, my family members’ recitals, field trips, pageants, parties, tests and feelings. My gears don’t always turn so well. I feel just twitchy enough to call out “downward dog!” at my toddler when he asks for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich or hand a confused postal worker a bouquet meant for the elementary school teacher. Really anything seems possible, but not necessarily in a good way. It’s more in a way where I’m acting like I believe that my world revolves around my abilities and actions to do very short-term things.

I can tell you that by November 24^th, after Thanksgiving had passed and before Advent had even started, I could already hear a prayer in my mind: “I don’t want to do all these end of year or preholiday things. I just want peace. I want that sitting in the church pew on Christmas Eve peace. That it’s dark and cold outside but it’s warm and quiet and calm in here peace. Knowing that something is bigger than me peace.” But for the sake of cultural norms and family obligations I run through what feels like a gauntlet of activities that sometimes seems to have very little to do with the heart of Advent or Christmas.

One of the beauties of doing yoga classes in a church setting is the connections I make with the community. Often at night I see the cleaners preparing the building for the next day. In the mornings, the preschool teachers meet in movement and song to prepare themselves to receive the children. In the summer I’ve held the ladder as Rev. Beth tests where each banner looks best in the Narthex. I’ve bumped into youth leaders staying late to create and place decorations for vacation bible school. In the fall I find evidence of Rev. Beth painting a rainbow on the window by the front door to depict the progress the church has made toward their pledging goals. I’ve run into members of the ladies group meeting at the church to head out on a retreat to the shore. In the winter I’ve seen both youth leaders and Rev. Beth preparing costumes for the nativity play.

In yoga class I often talk about the power of presence, the importance of being where you are. Even in a simple balancing pose like tree, for example, we must focus on where we are. Even an experienced practitioner will begin to fall if they allow their gaze to turn suddenly to check the time. It is only by being fully present in each moment, each movement that we prepare ourselves for the next. In preparation we don’t get to skip a step. Often we need to flow to our own rhythm even if it doesn’t match the season, even if it isn’t in time with others around us. We don’t, for example, jump from learning a tree pose to learning a bird of paradise pose, there are many movements, many lessons in between. Ultimately though, the goal of any yoga style or class is not about achieving a certain pose, it’s about connecting with the feeling of peace within. Movements help, managing our thoughts helps, but the only way to do that is to connect with a force that’s greater than yourself.

I found myself in the second week of December in what seemed to be the culmination of the chaos of seasonal, cultural and religious happenings. Despite often practicing being in the present moment, being present up to this moment in every moment was a challenge. I knew it was the season of Advent, the season of preparation. Despite the first candle of Advent being lit for hope a week before and the second for peace four days before, despite my wish for peace, I hadn’t yet connected with feeling of peace from within in the midst of the chaos of the present moment.

On December 14^th, my last day of Yoga for Body and Soul for the season. I headed off to UCP expecting it to also be engulfed in a hustle and bustle of activity. But tonight, it wasn’t. This evening I was struck by the silence as soon as I walked in. I heard no movement, saw no people. I placed my purple bolsters and blocks on the bench by the door. The Narthex had been readied for Advent without me noticing. Just above the bench where I had begun to unload my supplies hung a deep purple banner picturing the silhouette of 3 kings traveling across the desert at twilight. It read, “Joy to the World.” I looked to the right, towards the stairs I take to the drama room where yoga was held in the evenings. I realized the motivational sayings on the wall I have seen before actually spell HOPE, if you stand back and notice. And just like that, in the stillness, without any action on my part, peace snuck in and stayed.

As usual, I turned on my playlist for class. “Blessings” by Hollow Caves sang through my ear buds. I went back to my car for the mats and blankets. It was already dusk, the sun had set almost a half hour before. The temperature was dropping, still a pleasant winter night at about 40ish degrees. In the small stretch of woods in front of the church the trees were still, bare without their leaves, but tall and expansive with webs of branches reaching to scratch a clear blue-gray sky. The brightest stars had begun to appear. One hung in the West above the branches and a breath away from a contrail, just out of reach of both. The other, brightest star that I could see, hung in the skyline above the trees in the East and looked into the window on the altar where just hours before I watched Rev. Beth lead excited preschool students through a nativity reenactment. The people now all gone, but the star and lit Christmas tree seemed as content in each other’s company as I was in theirs. I stayed just long enough to finish my yoga night protein bar snack. Wiped my hands (there are no nuts in preschools to keep the children with allergies safe) and reentered the building. This time I noticed a table on my left full of books, some wrapped, some unwrapped and a sign that read FREE BOOKS. I opened the one titled, “Hope” by Max Lucado. Inside on a label someone had written “The Lord will provide.” Genesis 24:12. Indeed. Just like that, hope snuck in even before my obligations were over. For the first time since the beginning of the holiday season, I could feel an ember of hope and look forward to the Christmas season and all that came after.

Now, two weeks into this new year and I am owning where I am in this moment. I am moving, but slowly and in my own time. I am not skipping steps. I am finding focus.

Wherever you find yourself at the beginning of this New Year is ok. Allow yourself to be present where you are. If you have the energy to prepare a space, take the action you’re motivated to take- clean the rooms, share the books, paint the rainbows, run the play, hang the banners. Though you may never see the outcome, rest in the belief that your actions benefit others.

Also, please know that the staff at CPC are here to help partner with you in action if you need us: Whether that is a yoga class, an individual or family counseling session with a counselor, or someone to come speak to your church about a transition facing your community, CPC is here to support you. If like the trees in the woods, you are strong and steadily standing, but not yet ready to bloom, know that it is OK to just stay put and be. Know that it is OK not to take on the things you feel you do not have energy for in this moment.

The counselors at CPC are willing to sit with you wherever you are. If, like me, you need to feel your way through it in action, you can meet me on the mat. I both do individual yoga sessions, as well as yoga classes. To find out when the next Yoga for Body and Soul will be held or just hear the playlist from the last class you can check out the post on our Facebook page.

Margaret Gallen, MS, RYT-200

Phone: 703-903-9696, Ext. 201 (voicemail only).

Email: margaret@pastoralcounseling.com

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