The horrors of the hamstring stretch… 

Forward bends are hard. Particularly Pascimottanasana (seated forward bend.) I have tight hamstrings. My low back is locked up. And I hate looking at the blob in my tummy that happens when I hinge at the hip, tuck my chin, and my trunk starts to compress (OK the blob is there anyway, but the bend exacerbates.) Or if my neck is tight, I’m forced to gaze down and contemplate the blubbing of my thighs as I press them toward the mat.

Is it all about the physical tummy blob? Sometimes.

But probably, the blob issues are deeper than skin. The energy of a forward bend is one that draws us into ourselves, and sometimes The Blob in there is quite the horror:

It crawls! You watch it slither slowly…freezing you with fear or causing you to stumble as you try to back up…

It creeps! And it’s sneaky, hiding right around the corner ready to ooze out at you!

It eats you alive! You step in it, get stuck, and can’t find your way back out…

But with tools such as Yoga and meditation you find that you can stop swimming in the slop and look around you…and notice the opaqueness of your Blob. There’s something shining through…so instead of trying to back out, move deeper and trust that as you work through, the light on the other side will shine brighter and brighter. Light, or at least, Steve McQueen…

So whether your gaze is at blub or The Blob…don’t turn and run. Sometimes the only way around the sticky sludge of life is through it.