Letting Go of Expectations by way of Yoga

I have dabbled in Yoga off and on for probably the last 25 years or so. My mom saw a Hatha Yoga class advertised at the Y and suggested we try it since most fitness classes came free with our membership. We did, and both loved it. In fact, I still attend classes given by the instructor, Pam. I've followed her everywhere she has ever taught and fortunately, she does several classes a week at the gym in my town.
Since Tom arrived on the scene in 2003 and I'd spent a lot of the time since taking care of my parents, my participation in yoga had become almost non-existent. Then something amazing happened. A new yoga studio opened in town, less than a mile from my home. It's even in walking distance if you are not in a hurry. Phoenix Yoga is the first studio nearby that is (so far) entirely dedicated to the practice of yoga. I have taken many yoga classes in gyms, church basements, schools, libraries, and other public places and have gotten excellent instruction. However, there is always outside noise, be it the hum of the treadmills or the sound of people walking up and down stairs. You just can't tune out the outside world the way you can in a studio.
So it came to be that back in September the local studio offered a special on classes which were to benefit the local animal shelter. Being an owner of three shelter cats myself and anxious to get involved in something, anything that might help me with my persistent stress and migraine headaches I signed on.
The first few classes were tough. The world of Yoga had changed somewhat since I had last been attending regular classes. The classes I'd taken years back were a lot more low-key and emphasized restoration and relaxation. These  types of classes still exist and are still part of my yoga regimen, but the first few classes I took upon returning to the practice were Vinyasa classes. These classes consist of a series of postures done in a flow sequence, almost similar to dance, and are quite physically challenging. But I persevered and found that, to my surprise, these more active classes were helping me to release stress and feel better. As time went on, I learned that the studio offered a wide variety of classes and workshops in many different types of yoga. The workshops, in particular, were quite beneficial in helping me catch up on what I'd missed over my years of absence from a regular practice.

Pepper doing Downward Dog on my car

Last night I took a class which is especially beneficial to me. It was called "Letting Go of Expectations." It featured a series of postures taken from the book Yoga for Life A Journey to Inner Peace and Freedom by Colleen Saidman Yee. As Colleen writes before she presents the sequence, " The sequence is about letting go of expectations-those you have for yourself or that others have for you. It focuses on releasing tension and pressure from the shoulders, head, and neck, which are areas where we carry stress". If you, the reader, suffers from stress or is interested in yoga, I can't recommend this book highly enough. The class was fantastic. It was a combination of active and passive postures and did indeed help me release stress. In our house, we need to do a lot of work on letting go of expectations. Besides the usual, "life isn't the way we thought it would be" ones. I also find that my son Tom needs to get rid of expectations set years ago by the school district that were too low. They saw him only in the context of his learning disabilities, not as the bright kid he was. It has taken him years to shake off these expectations, but I hope that, as time goes on, he will succeed in doing so.

Good morning! In recent months, I have come to the realization that my life is a complete mess. I am well into midlife now, and I nowhere resemble where I thought I would be at this age. Let's face it, I am 57 years old, about to turn 58 in another month. At this age, my kids should be well grown, my husband and I should be retired, and we should be looking forward to grandkids, right? WRONG! Instead, I have a 13-year-old son named Thomas whom I adore. Although he is bright, witty, and very loving (well, as loving as a young teenager can be), he has a very complex constellation of special needs. He has dyslexia, dyspraxia, dyscalculia, ADHD, APD, to name a few things. I became his mom at age 44 when we traveled to the Republic of Belarus in February 2003 to adopt him. After almost a decade of miscarriages, failed fertility treatments, and pure anguish, it was the happiest time of my life. I spent the next four years as a happy stay at home mom. Then he went off to school and reality reared its ugly head. He had difficulty reading, writing, and spelling. So to make a very long story short, I had to ditch a new career I had started as an Early Childhood Teacher, throw all caution to the wind, and begin homeschooling. Don't ask if he got help at school. He did and sufficed it is to say that it didn't go the way we'd hoped. At the same time, my husband, who had worked for a major piano manufacturer as a retail technician for almost 20 years, was let go when his entire department was shut down. He had no other good options but to re-start his own business. In the beginning, things went well, but being that the economy here in CT is not great, things have been unsteady, to say the least. Enter major financial distress.
If this weren't enough, I also spent the past 15 years caring for my parents. My dad, who suffered from severe rheumatoid arthritis, passed on the very day ten years ago. The first few years watching over Mom were great. She had lots of fun accompanying our family to German cultural functions, school functions, and even planned her 65th high school class reunion. Then things changed. She began forgetting things. First small things, then bigger ones. She broke her pelvis and her wrist in 2008 and mentally deteriorated further, even though she survived the physical injuries. A visit to a geriatric specialist confirmed our worst fears. Mom had Alzheimer's related Dementia. I spent the next eight years shepherding her progression from living on her own to aides coming a few times a week, to her needing live in care, and finally to residing in a nursing home. She spent her last three and a half years in the home and peacefully passed away three weeks ago.
So here I am today, severely financially strapped, grieving my dear mother, even though she mentally left us years ago, and homeschooling a young teenager. The funny thing is, I wouldn't have things any other way. If they were any other way, I wouldn't be me, I'd be someone else, with a different husband and a different child.