Finding Space

If you are a larger than average person, the idea of taking up space can be terrifying.  Even though I think that I am pretty good at taking up space....when I think of plane travel, I start to panic.  It doesn't help that there have been some very public cases of fat people being told to get off of the plane.  And I've had experiences where just seeing me come onto a plane people will immediately grab both of their arm rests and expand their body over their seat.  Imagine what a child does with using their body to cover their toys so that they don't have to share, and you will get the picture.

It's frustrating.

I don't spread over my seat in an airplane, and I actually try to make myself as small as possible.  I hug my arms across my chest, I always let the person next to me have the armrest (even when I am in the center seat), I will sit for longer periods of time because I don't want to inconvenience someone in having to get up.  I've dealt with glares, the eye rolls.  With people freaking out if the hem of my sweater happens to fall on the armrest, yet I don't get to complain when the same person keeps elbowing me (hard!) throughout the flight.  I've even dealt with someone putting their chair down all the way and refusing to pull up their seat when the food was delivered (a flight attendant ended up having to intervene on that one).

The situation isn't fair.

The seats are small for everyone...that is a fact.  That is unfair to everyone.  What is unfair to me and to countless others who are similar in size to me is the reaction of other people to our size.  And in my experience, those that seem to worry that I am going to take up their space end up taking up twice as much as I do in an attempt to make sure that I don't take over theirs.

We need to give ourselves a break.

A few years ago I had a size breakthrough on a plane.  I was coming back from a conference in India and I was sick.  The kinda of sick where your entire body hurts when you aren't stuck in the bathroom in even more pain from all that is passing through you.  In order to be in slightly less pain, I needed a pillow on my lower back.  Except I couldn't get the seatbelt on with the pillow at my back.  In fact, getting the seatbelt to connect had been a problem for a while, resulting in bruises on my body where I have literally stuffed myself in....hoping that if I just tried to take up less space all would be better. 

I was in agony. All I needed was two inches.

A flight attendant saw me struggling and discretely gave me a lapbelt extender.  First of all, I didn't know that they existed.  Then, I started to cry because I felt so humiliated that I needed one in the first place.  About an hour or two later, I realized that I was comfortable.  That my body hurt less.  I felt free.  All I needed was two inches and that beautiful, amazing, angelic flight attendant gave me the permission to take the two inches that would have made the difference between relief and agony.

So why am I telling you this story and what does it have to do with yoga?  Well, I was reminded of this story as I just came back from a trip to Kenya....and traveling always reminds me of the fact that I still need to give myself permission to take up my own space.  But also.... granting ourselves the permission to take two inches of space is also the essence of yoga modifications.  I use straps, blocks, the wall, etc all the time in my yoga practice because it enhances my practice.  A strap can give me the two inches that I need to get my leg up high enough to do Lord of the Dance pose.  A block can make the difference between a bad knee day and a good knee day in Triangle pose.  I've come across many students who feel awful when they use a prop...like it means that they have failed.  They haven't.  They have just listened to their body.  Then I'll tell them the lapbelt story....but even then I have still had those that are still resistant. 

Here's a secret....  Although it really isn't a secret because it is out in the open.

Your mat: that's a prop, a modification.
That's right!  There were no sticky mats when yoga was being developed!  There are no aesthetic yogis walking the Indian countryside with a pink gaiam mat strapped to their backs!  Pah-lease!

See?  This entire time you've already been practicing with help.  In western yoga classes we are constantly taught to find the space on our mat and treat it as a place of solace.  Give yourself permission to honor that space that you have already claimed....and then continue to give yourself the permission to enjoy every single one of those "two-inches" you need.

Much thanks to Rezwan for taking this photo of me teaching yoga while at my conference in Kenya.  If you can't tell, that's me in the white. :)