When approached the right way, our yoga practice opens up the body making it more balanced and comfortable. This requires us to seek out where there is resistance or a blockage in the body and work toward clearing it.
Often we think that to clear these obstacles we need to push. Sometimes through frustration we give up. More often than not what’s required is something in between. In between pushing and yielding, there is ‘being’. Being requires us to be present with what is arising, not demanding more than is appropriate but also not running away. It’s the still, present state of awareness.
Pushing and yielding occur when we say ‘I know I can’ or ‘I know I can’t’. Being requires us to surrender any ideas of what we think we know, and just explore what is. It requires us to be open to whatever arises without judgment.
When we can do this with our body, we can start to see how we might also do this with the obstacles in our mind. Instead of trying to force the mind or let it wander about unchecked, we can be present, observe our thoughts and conditioning and change them slowly with patience and compassion.
We are more than just practitioners of yoga, we are students. Always enquiring, always observing, always learning. Then transformation can happen.
Photo credit: Paulo Pinto www.trindade.photography