The Race for Rats…

…and all the other ones I’ve lost.

Today, after a long time of being infirmed with my broken foot, I was able to go to yoga! It was a YIN class, which is a very passive class. However, that isn’t to say it is without it’s challenges, but it may be said it is less physically demanding (unless, of course, stillness and holding position is something you find demanding).

I was on my mat waiting for the class to begin when the woman next to me sipped her water and in doing so, got a mouthful of ice, which she proceeded to chew on. I got annoyed by it; I found myself rather very annoyed by it, actually. BUT, as I was laying in savasana, in my meditative state, it occurred to me I had no right to be annoyed by her. How selfish of me to be so annoyed; as if I have never chewed ice, right? She wasn’t doing anything *wrong*, and frankly, her crunching of said ice wasn’t that loud. It was a perfectly innocent, normal act. So I thought about why it bothered me, and it occurred to me, I wasn’t really annoyed with her. I was annoyed that I NOTICED the crunching of the ice as it disrupted my silence and more so, really, I was annoyed with myself for having forgotten my own bottle in the car.

I think we have moments like that often in life, where we just need to step back and consider a situation, then realize what we are actually thinking or feeling. I think so often we respond in a reactionary way, without truly realizing the source of our annoyances. Maybe our interactions truly are mirrors of ourselves, more often than we stop to realize.