Sweaty Shavasana

I have needs and I have wants. We all do. Sometimes it’s hard to distinguish between the two. Actually, it’s almost always hard to distinguish between the two.

I made it to a hot yoga class tonight for the first time in many weeks. Crawling out of the hole of bad habits I had fallen into has been daunting, but one step at a time I’m progressing. Yoga, and especially Nikki’s classes at Yoga Studio 43, are my favorite mental and physical exercise. Synchronizing my breath, strength, balance, and focus pushes the boundaries of what I think I am capable of doing. This spills over into every other area of my life and forces me to reevaluate everything.

So tonight, during Shavasana (corpse pose) where I was supposed to be still while meditating, I couldn’t stop focusing on the sweat bead that was very slowly rolling down my brow. My first instinct was to think I needed to wipe my brow. The goal is to be still, calm the mind and focus on the breath. I certainly didn’t want to disturb my neighbor in this very full class, so I focused on ignoring the sweat. As I powered through, it dawned on me that the space between wants and needs is barely existent.

This is true in most all cases. Sure you need shelter, but there are thousands of homeless people surviving in tents in cities across the country. Is my comfy house a necessity? Everyone needs food to survive, but my pantry goes far beyond the bare minimum. We need water, but the flavored seltzer (and can we be honest that they all flavors basically taste like the can they came in) doesn’t fill that requirement any better than the tap water that flows freely. We all need love, but hundreds of likes on the Gram aren’t as fulfilling as the admiration of one true friend.

You see, most of our requirements can be met in a very minimal way. Yet, we convince ourselves that our desires are our needs in order to justify the expense or sacrifice needed to get them. The more we push the boundary of needs into the realm of wants, the more we are out of balance and likely to make poor decisions.

So as much as my mind was screaming that I needed to wipe my brow, it became obvious that it was so much more of a desire. It’s funny how our mind plays these tricks on us. I guarantee you have you said, “I need to eat lunch so why not just order a meatball sub” or “I had a long week so I need to rest up instead of going to the gym.” The heartburn and spare tire that result prove that repeatedly giving into our wants will lead us down the wrong path.

In the end, practicing powering through discomfort can help us make better decisions in all areas of our lives. Breathing through a pose where I’m struggling to balance on one foot or zoning in on a focal point instead of focusing on the pain of a fatigued muscle trains my mind to distinguish between discomfort and pain And more importantly, I’m better able to delay gratification which gives me the time to process the difference between wants and needs in all areas of my life. This alone is worth the price of admission.