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Last night was my fifth consecutive weekly Kundalini class. Yes, it's still ridiculous difficult for me to get all bendy; yes, I'd rather be eating chocolate than contorting my rigid bones and doing the breath of fire; and yes, for those 90 minutes, I feel like a giant panda trying to use scissors without opposable thumbs.

The whole experience is shades of unbelievable discomfort for me because I'm the girl in the class who is pausing while everyone else is holding their pose, which reminds me that joining the army is probably not a good idea for me. While we were doing some cobra pose variation, with everyone struggling to push through the pain, I completely collapsed on myself. My first thought was, "What if the yoga teacher was a drill sargeant? She would punish this whole group because I gave up. Oh dear. I am the weakest link." Once we were given permission to release cobra pose and rest on our stomach, little sweaty tears were dripping from my eyes as I realized I was that girl.

The yoga texts I've read all state that physical flexibility is only partially fueled by muscles, that the main support for poses comes from the flow of life energy in a person. So, when we have a blockage that keeps us from doing cobra pose (a-hem) it has less to do with our physiological lower back than it does with the spiritual and mental baggage which we hold as tension in that area. Oh, fantastic.

This yoga experience makes me wonder about why we have the continuing desire to pursue things that are not only physically challenging, but also completely without guarantee. There is no guarantee that after a year of doing yoga that I will be happier, healthier, or more capable of touching my toes. Sure, I'm hoping for all of those benefits, but it's just as likely that after a year of doing yoga, I'll only be slightly more capable and infinitely more frustrated. Yet, even though I weep my way through my poses, I can't help but put my faith in the boundless possibility that there is a way out of physical stress, mental cloudiness, and spiritual ache. Maybe the answer is Kundalini. Maybe it's something else. Or maybe it has nothing to do with what I do, but rather with how I open myself to my own potential.