It is that time of the year again. I started this blog about two years ago, and my first post is here. This still is so true for me, although not working does make the stress much easier to deal with, or rather it changes it. The stress is different. I've been thinking a lot about mindfulness, surrender, and presence lately. Since my brain bleed my threshold for stress is about 10% of what it was before. Meaning it takes way less to send me into anxiety and panic. In fact sometimes it takes pretty much nothing. I can get to my breaking point just from someone else's stress.
If you have been to a yoga class, or done one to a video, no doubt at some point the instructor has said "let that go". What does that mean? How do you let go of the to do lists, the pressures you feel, the commitments, or your own expectations? It is a phrase that is tossed out there with the assumption that we know what that means, and can easily just make it happen. I think that lots of people feel like failures because they can't just let it go. Is that you? Let me say this loud and clear. YOU ARE NOT A FAILURE. But here is the thing. We come to our physical practices to prepare us for the hard stuff in life. I feel this now more than ever. We have a yoga and meditation practices so we can recognize the "sameness" of things. Unexpected demands require a similar skill set to chair pose or toe squat. Breath and surrender.
"Okay crazy lady" you might be saying. Think of a time, maybe on your mat in a class or another time when you actually maybe felt that. You adjusted your pose, got a little more relaxed, and exhaled deeply and felt the tension leave your body. Maybe you received the most wonderful adjustment in savasana and you felt the tension leave your shoulders, maybe a song came on that spoke to you and felt that release. You can feel it now right? You remember that feeling, even if you just had it once. The more times you are able to do that in your "practice" to be able to facilitate that feeling, the more accessible it becomes. Eventually the teacher says let it go, and you don't think of Frozen, but you can cultivate that feeling again. And the coolest part is that eventually you can do it OFF YOUR MAT. Really it happens! That moment of checking in, being present, and at peace. These are the little pauses. These are the moments when you ground yourself, and recenter with your purpose.
To me, that moment has become the moment of surrender, of offering up to the universe that which I feel like I am carrying alone. That acknowledgement of what is overwhelming for me has been instrumental in my ability to move forward. Whatever your religious beliefs, yoga has a place for you. That inclusivity is one of the reasons I love it. Recognition that some things are out of your control is the only requirement. Ishvara Pranidhana is Sanskrit and can be translated as dedication or surrender to God. But in western cultures we often hear it as just surrender.
I used to think it looked like this:
But now I think it looks more like this:
For me, it is a moment of acknowledging what is circulating in my mind, the things I can't seem to solve or move past. I say them out loud if I can, and in my head if I can't, and I literally ask for help to carry them. Not to fix it, not to make it go away. But it is too much for me to carry right now, and I don't know what to do with it. And when I hear the term "let it go" I replace it with "offer it up". It feels like when an unexpected friend helps with a job you thought you were going to do alone.
Here is the biggest thing of all. Namaste means "the light in me honours and sees the light in you", that light being the divine-ness of each of us. That means, are you ready... you need to see yourself as a divine being. Woah. That is where so many of us get stuck. That peace of surrender and love from the universe can not be truly felt until you really believe that you are worthy of receiving it just for being. And as soon as you you see yourself as the amazing unique deserving person that you are, the rest sort of falls into place. There is a bit more ease. That to me is why the hands over the heart feels important in the act of offering up, letting go, that gentle touch and act of love towards your own tender heart is a physical reminder of your innate goodness that you don't have to earn, you don't have to prove.
You are enough.
No lists to complete. No presents to give. No expectations to fulfill.
And when you can see that in yourself, it is so much easier to see it in everyone you meet and encounter. The person holding up the line in the busy store, the person asking for change, the person sleeping on the sidewalk, the neighbours who don't shovel their sidewalk... And then life seems so much easier.
Namaste. It means so much more than the end of class.
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