Abridged version originally published in On Our Section News, September 22, 2016

Settling an unsettled mind is a tricky task.

The other day I had my first yoga session in more than two years. I’ve never been much of a yoga person, preferring to jog and pick up heavy things in order to sculpt my fleshy outer casing.

But I’ve had a bit of spare time on my hands lately and it’s magpie season, which means nowhere is safe.

So I went along to a class, dragging my stiff but somehow (I know exactly how: bread) soggy body to the studio and plonking myself down on a mat my sister leant me. I first was struck by how bad I am at listening to and following instructions. It’s like when you ask someone for directions and then tune out at the poor stranger you ambushed attempts to guide you do your destination. I never listen to directions, and it’s a problem. Especially because most of the time when I’m listening to directions, in my head I’m telling myself that I need to listen to directions more because I don’t listen to directions… it’s a cycle that won’t ever end.

Also, I haven’t become any better at telling my left from my right. I failed my learners’ licence test SEVERAL times because I keep mucking up my directions. And it seems I have learnt nothing since I was 17-and-a-half (it’s true, and I still have the Schoolies ’09 singlet to prove it). There’s a lot in yoga about left hands going one place and right legs going somewhere else. It’s like a slow version of the hokey pokey. I’m considering putting an L on my left hand and an R on my right next time.

Yes, there will be a next time. Because it didn’t mind that place.

But also because I want to tame the lions of my mind. Apparently yoga can make your head stop banging on about nothing and this makes you all not highly strung and present minded and all that shit you see in adult colouring books.

I wanted to achieve this during my first session. But it wasn’t that easy.

I sat there ready to empty my mind. Sure, that’s no easy feat. There’s a lot going on up there (think: a room with fax machine receiving endless faxes, a continuous loop of The Simpsons reruns projected on a dirty sheet, an air horn playing the tune of jingles from 90s television ads, several small fires, a mime and a confetti gun). But if anything was going to still my internal waters, surely it would be yoga.

Yoga has soothing music and encourages you to breathe and allows you to wear thongs to class (one of my sisters wears slippers, that’s how bloody relaxed it is). The gym has a confusing video clip playlist that means Pink’s Get This Party Started or Taxiride’s Creepin’ Up Slowly are on every time I’m there. The gym encourages you to “just do it” (whatever “it” is hasn’t been specified, but I can assure you “it” will make the folds under your buttcheeks sweaty and doesn’t involve vanilla slice). The gym requires closed in shoes at all times.

If my mind were to be quietened, this might be the best spot.

So after all the stretching and breathing and twisting my body, I prepared for stillness.

The instructor finished the class with some form of relaxation session, telling us to close our eyes and focus on our breathing. Then she told us to visualise a swan.

And that’s were it all went off the rails.

Because for the last four or so years, I’ve been hankering to sink my teeth into the flesh of one of those long-necked geese.

It started after someone told me the monarchy owned all the swans in The Commonwealth. Naturally, I was outraged. I don’t know the exact twists and turns the following rant took as I unleashed against the unfairness of it all, but it ended with me vowing to taste the flesh of the queen’s winged children. Even if I had scrape it off the road or pick at the rotting corpse of a swan after fishing it from polluted waters. 

So when the instructor told us to picture a swan, I didn’t see a graceful bird gently gliding through a pristine pond, I saw a roast chook with a bloody long neck. And because I had nothing to do but sit there in silence with my eyes closed, my fowl mediation burned with intensity. I saw feathers flying. I heard the honks of despair. I could feel the crunch of the meat thermometer piercing the glazed skin and passing through cartilage.

Then the other night I went again. And again I wanted to quieten my mind. But instead all I thought about was an animated series about a duck and a seal being best friends (you can’t take that idea, either). It was to be reminiscent of the Rocko’s Modern Life era and break down barriers. The animation would be the most basic of drawings – none of this three dimensional bullhonkey that children are force-fed. I even had the first few bars of the song for the opening credits.

Clearly, it takes more than a few stretches to break in the wild brumby with flowing mane and sparkling eyes that is my mind. Maybe my thoughts were never meant to be reigned in. Maybe my mind is supposed to run free on the horizon of lunacy.

But during both times, while the ridiculous and criminal thoughts pulsated through my brain, I remained still. On the outside, I was calm. My chilled out exterior shielded the madness within to a point where one couldn’t suspect my thinking.

And here’s where yoga could potentially have its biggest benefit for me.