Summary of Carry On, Warrior: The Power of Embracing Your Messy, Beautiful Life - Book Summary (2016)

Part I. WAKING UP

Chapter 8. Smelly Coughy Guy

Here’s why I really love and need yoga: because of Smelly Coughy Guy.

I am easily overwhelmed. There are lots of things I have to do each day to remind myself that everyone is okay, including me. Yoga is one of these things I do to stay calm and remember. Yoga is like a sabbath; it’s how I prove to myself that I am not in charge, that if I drop off the face of the earth for an hour with no other goal than to breathe, the world will keep spinning without me. Because, as it turns out, I am not the one causing it to spin. I’m just along for the ride. I practice yoga to find quiet and peace and stillness: to prove to myself that those things exist. I also practice yoga to learn how not to be bothered by things that are out of my control. That’s how I want to be. And people have to practice if they ever hope to be how they want to be.

I practice yoga at my local gym. When I am not writing or frantically searching for sippy cups, I am at the gym. Not because I am really all that interested in fitness, but because my gym has a wonderful nursery full of people who will take my kids, so I “work out” a lot. If my post office had a wonderful nursery full of people who would take my kids, I would mail a lot. Sometimes Adrianne and I meet at the gym and just sit on the stationary bikes and talk. We don’t even move our legs. After Adrianne and I finish not working out, I go to yoga. She doesn’t go because she thinks yoga’s stupid.

So I say bye to Adrianne, and I walk into the dark, quiet yoga room. I get my mat and set it up way over in the corner. I make a border with my water bottle and shoes as a subtle hint that nobody should get too close to me. I smile at my instructor and get into the lotus position and close my eyes and start breathing deeply through my nose. Aaaaaah …

And then … Smelly Coughy Guy walks in the door. I know it’s him right away because I hear him and I smell him. Smelly Coughy Guy smells and coughs. That’s all he does. And so every time he walks into class, I panic and I pray silently and ferociously: pleasenopleasenopleasenodontsitnexttomedontsitnextome. And every single time, he sets up his mat right next to mine. Every single time. Sometimes he even moves my water bottle to get closer to me. And he smells and he coughs throughout the entire class. He smells and he coughs so insistently and consistently that when the instructor says to breathe deeply, I’m not sure that’s in my best interest.

I spend the first half-hour of class silently cursing Smelly Coughy Guy. I fold my hands in prayer pose and bow my little head and half-close my eyes, and then I ignore my instructor’s pleas to focus and stay in the moment, and I glare sideways at Smelly Coughy Guy every time he coughs. I often get caught by my instructor, who smiles zenly at both of us. And that makes me share my glare with her. And I keep saying to my poor beleaguered self, Why me?Why why why? I’m with three screaming kids at home all day. Is it too much to ask for just an hour of peace and quiet?

I do this every time. Still.

But here’s what I’m learning from Smelly Coughy Guy and my patient, nonjudgmental yoga instructor: I think I may have had the wrong idea about what peace is.

I pray and pray for God to help me feel some peace and stillness in the midst of my mommy life instead of feeling constantly like a dormant volcano likely to erupt at any given moment and burn my entire family alive. And God says: Well G, here’s the thing. Peace isn’t the absence of distraction or annoyance or pain. It’s finding Me, finding peace and calm, in the midst of those distractions and annoyances and pains.

So he sends me Smelly Coughy Guy, a kind teacher, and an otherwise quiet room to practice finding peace.

Smelly Coughy Guy is actually part of the answer to my prayers. He’s helping me.

I am learning a little more each day.

For example, last weekend my family was running late for a birthday party, and when we finally got everybody’s shoes on and the whole family strapped into the van, gifts and sippy cups in sticky little hands, the garage door wouldn’t open. We were just sitting in the van, kids yelling because they were afraid we’d miss the party, hands freezing, for a solid ten minutes, and Craig couldn’t fix the door. It was not good.

But I didn’t even burst out crying. I said to myself, “Self, this too, shall pass.”

And this, my friends, was progress. Or maybe it was the fumes. Either way, Craig called it a “miracle.”

Peace is not the absence of conflict, but the ability to cope with it.

—Robert Fulghum