On robbery & yoga

Last year in May while waiting for the bus on Hackney Road a kid in jeans, a black jacket and a grey hoodie stole my phone out of my hands and ran off with it. I ran after him, screaming and cursing like a sailor but after a few moments I realised that I didn't know what I would do if I did catch him so I ran home to call the police.

On Friday morning, around 7am, on my bike on my way to yoga, two kids on a scooter drove up behind me and plucked my bag out of my bike basket, then drove off laughing.

The difference in how I feel a few days after the latest incident, and how I felt after having my phone stolen in May is amazing. I'm still sad, I lost some lovely things. I'm annoyed at the inconvenience and at the feeling of having my space invaded and my boundaries crossed by malicious strangers. But I am calm. My heart isn't so filled with anxiety that I start at every person on the street and am distrustful of everyone. Last year it took me months before I felt safe and I am still very cagey about using my iPhone in public. It's only been a few days since the incident, but I feel ok. I feel calm. I can think about those two boys and while part of me wants them to run their scooter into a wall, part of me feels pity for them. Because stealing things isn't a great career choice and if that's your option and your path then you have bigger problems than I do.

I think this change and this ability to handle crappy situations so much better than I used to is down to (somewhat) regular yoga practice and (somewhat) regular meditation practice. It's been just over a year since I started meditating (almost) daily with the Headspace app and it's just about a year since I started regular yoga but more specifically Astanga Mysore with Melanie at the Life Centre in Islington. I sleep better than I used to. I am not nearly as generally anxious as I used to be. I am better at recognising a situation and being ok with it. Life's not perfect and things still throw me for a loop, but I am much better at my LIFE than I was a year ago.

On Friday morning, after the police finished up and dropped me off with my bike, I decided to keep going and do a short pratice at the studio. I told Melanie what had happened, did twenty minutes of  yoga, shed a few tears, built myself a yoga couch for my sivasana and breathed. Afterwards in the change room I was talking to another teacher, Lisa, and she asked me how my practice was. I told it that I had been mugged that day but that I had still come to yoga and that I felt good for that. I told her it this story, about how a year ago I was robbed and this time was so much easier to handle. And that it was almost a year since I had started yogaing. She gave me a hug and said congratulations on my year.

Isn't it wonderful how yoga helps us handle the good and the bad, and how sometimes you need the bad to show you what you've got in you and how far you've come.


Happy ending: A lady walking her dog in the park found my daybook and some of my clothes strewn around. She collected them and called me. I'll pick them up from her tonight.