...in proportion to one's courage." Anais Nin
The path of yoga is one of opening. Yoga always demonstrates: Wisdom opens. Fear closes. Courage expands.
We live in our bodies, and we think we know ours, but we're often disconnected from them. For me, it was like I floated outside of mine. I didn't or couldn't breathe deeply into it. I didn't consider hydration or nutrition. It was clumsy, awkward. Was I afraid of it? Was I distracted by the noisy, demanding mind and emotions? Did I simply take my body for granted? Hard saying, not knowing. But I wasn’t connected to the only navigational vehicle for this earthly realm.
It’s easy to think that the body brings us to yoga, since it's our bodies that place the mat on the floor and flop around on it. But the reality is that the poses of yoga returns us to our bodies. Yoga shows us how we are doing, and gives us the tools to feel better, safer, braver, and easier--on the mat and off. Focusing on the poses draws the attention away from the noisy, demanding mind and emotions. We get to safely face fear.
In balance poses, fear of falling made me unconsciously pull inward. It felt safer to draw in tightly and constrict. I mistakenly thought that contraction would make me more stable, more protected. Turns out, the exact opposite is true. In standing balance poses, I was surprised to discover that reaching as far as I could brought more stability, safety, and confidence, not less. I would pretend that cords on my feet and ankles, hands and arms, and head were being pulled in the right directions by some benevolent assistant. And I still pretend that, because it helps when I'm wobbly.
The lessons on the mat translate perfectly to life off the mat. Fear constricts us when we feel in danger, vulnerable, embarrassed, angry, or off kilter. We may not be aware of this constriction, but by contracting/resisting, we are at war with the moment and with whatever is happening.
We are at war with reality. The thing that makes us suffer most is not what is happening in the challenging moments, but our resistance to it.
When we constrict and resist, an effective response to a challenging moment is out of reach. We can’t communicate effectively with others or even ourselves. We can't process the situation adequately because we have withdrawn and assumed a defensive position. We project negativity. We are stuck in reaction mode, unable to act or to exert free will.
When we resist a situation, person, or idea, we mistakenly think we can change it by contracting enough. While we can’t even control our own response, we somehow think we can control the unfolding of life. Most devastating of all, we are trying to function effectively and failing, because we think we know best what “should” be happening.
By allowing the undesirable/unwanted and opening to it, we can discover our rock-solid fearless wisdom. It is that wisdom that knows the futility of resistance. There is nothing to fear, just a situation, person, or idea to encounter and attend to. We discover freedom from reactivity in the moment. Calm, capable confidence is available. Confidence brings honesty, compassion, clarity, authenticity, and a source of peace and ease in even the most trying times.
We partner with reality when we quit fighting it.
By watching resistance, we can eliminate it with the cleansing light of observation. There is nothing else required. Nothing else to do. We discover that the only thing that matters is the quality of the current moment, the current pose--whether it’s easy or difficult, preferred or unwanted. Just as we grow with the steady practice of yoga poses, the practice of observing the quality of the moment will guide us to supreme being.
Moment by moment, pose by pose, life expands when we chose Open.
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