Could Laundry Be Your Yoga Practice?

“Must be nice to have all that time for yoga!” Heard that one before? Maybe from your mom, your brother, your girlfriend…or maybe from yourself. Chances are someone, at some point, has tried to make you feel guilty for devoting time to your practice.

So what’s the guilt all about?

Our society, of course, is fast-paced, product-oriented, and anti-relaxation, but haven’t we yogis already figured it out? Don’t we already live the antidote? We should just feel great!

Yet who hasn’t wrestled with the worry that it really is just an indulgence? A little optional icing on the humdrum but serviceable cake of our lives. Who hasn’t lain in savasana and listened to a yoga teacher intone something about “Me Time,” while they rub us down with lavender lotion? Nice, soothing, luxurious, yes, but who hasn’t had days when all this makes us think, “Jeez, I should be out there giving blood, or planting trees, or at the very least cleaning my freezer!”

What does “Me Time” really mean?

In Yoga for a World Out of Balance, Michael Stone writes, “If yoga does not support the quality of our family relationships, the health of our community, the way we source and eat our food, the way we feel in mind and body, how is it beneficial?” (p.29)

A good question. And precisely the one we unconsciously ask ourselves in these moments of guilt and weirdness we may experience on our yoga mats.

In these moments, it pays to look beyond the overt pleasure of stretching and relaxing – the “Me Time,” – and have a closer look at what happens later, back in our “regular” lives. Especially during periods of sustained yoga practice – whether attending regular class, creating our own routine, or following a DVD – we often remember to breathe even off the mat. This may just result in more patience when it’s time for that meeting with our super-stressful client.

Perhaps we are more attuned to our physical bodies and are actually able to notice the pleasant sensation of warm water on our hands as we do something as mundane as the dishes.

Maybe your latest class shifted some aspect of your subtle, energetic body, leaving you more grounded and at home in the world. What a great foundation from which to help your son with his homework or drive your grandma to the doctor.

There is only “We Time.”

As we all know, yoga is so much more than perfecting sequences of asana. It is a vast, many-limbed system of thought, and, to return to Stone, “Mothering, breast-feeding, laundry – these are valid forms of yoga practice because they are expressions of intimacy in action…yoga is a householder practice.” (p. 29)

So next time you think your humdrum, serviceable cake isn’t worthy of icing, take just a moment to tune into your breath as you hurry down the street, a moment to feel the stretch of your shoulder as you grip the subway railing – this is yoga. You are connecting to the world around you, and you are opening yourself to connection with others.