It has been nearly one year since I’ve sat down here to write to you all. I had intentions of keeping up a regular blog post, but what do you know - that thing called life got in the way. This past year has been a huge pivoting point in my life, one where I have done a lot of letting go, shifting of habits, relationships, and the ways in which I cope and utilize self-care (as opposed to self-indulgence) to navigate the ups and downs. In my practice I have really learned to find steadiness and ease, within myself as well as in my outer world.
The essence of yoga is finding that balance point between Sthira (steadiness) and Sukha (ease). This applies to asana as well as to our mental and emotional worlds.
Sthira~ strong, steady, stable, effort.
Sukha~comfortable, happy, relaxed, ease.
When we can move/think/feel steady and intentionally, and in flow with our breath/life/universe we find an ease, and often even joy, in some of our most challenging times. Specializing in trauma, a lot of the people with whom I work with are coming to me from very unsteady situations in which they’ve often lost all sense of feeling strong and stable. Some can’t even define what those words mean to them. So how do we move through life with a sense of ease if we can not first create/establish a sense of stability and strength?
PRACTICE.
For myself, this is what brought yoga into my life as an every day, every moment way of being, needing to find my own stability amidst all of the movement; needing to teach my body and my brain a new way of sensing, being, and responding. When people ask me how often I practice yoga, my answer surprises them. I reply, “every second of every day.” You see, the practice of yoga is not purely asana. Asana is simply a means to get our conditioned mind and nervous system online with the real program. What is the real program, you ask? Everyday life. Reality.
Reality is not often what we think it is. Reality is quite simple if we allow it to be. The “reality” that most of us operate on most of the time is more of a feedback loop that plays through our internal body systems and our brain. Instead of responding to the present experiences in our lives, we more often respond to conditioned presumptions based on past experiences (we can think of this as a trigger response).
In order to create a steady and stable ground (physical, mental, emotional) we need to override our quick trigger response and let our internal systems know that the present experience is new and that we have the chance to experience, see, and feel differently. We actually have (we can) control over this. But again, it takes PRACTICE.
This practice is on-going, life-long. It is a daily moment-to-moment occurrence if you’re willing. Because life experiences, triggers, never end. But, this is not a bad thing. The practice is not here to bring us happiness in every moment. To truly feel happiness we also need to be able to feel other things. There will be days when the practice is so easy, so natural — you are just in the flow with all of it, and blissfully so. Then there will be other days when the practice is quite challenging, and at times you may feel that you’ve gotten nowhere, except that just having that awareness of your challenges in and of itself is a mountain you have just climbed. Honor yourself in the moments you fall back down. You will climb back up again. Because the thing about awareness is, that once it’s there it doesn’t go away. We all climb and fall at different paces. Your ever-growing awareness to be present with what is, and find steadiness and ease there, will always get you climbing again when you are ready.
Here are some steps to take your practice on the mat, and more importantly your practice in life, into a state of balance between sthira and sukha.
Sthira:
1) Ground (physically, literally) - feel yourself on the ground, your two feet pressing firmly down. Sense the connection of you here now, rooted and strong; supported from underneath.
2) Breathe (intentionally, mindfully) - take slow and complete inhales and exhales, even in their length of time. Allow your belly to become completely full with each inhale, and to release completely with each exhale. Listen to the sound of your breath. Notice the temperature of your breath in through the nostrils and the temperature of your breath out through the back of the throat. Notice the movement of breath within your body, the expansion and release.
3) Focus (steady eyes, steady mind) - allow your eyes to softly focus on one point. When a thought comes in to distract, focus the mind back to the breath. It is normal to have to continue to redirect yourself. Stick with it. If you have a hard time focusing your eyes to one point, and closing your eyes helps you to keep a steady focus, try that when feeling distracted.
Sukha:
1) Bring your attention to what in the body feels open and soft; relaxed. If you need to work to relax a part of the body, imagine you are breathing your exhale out into that part you want to relax and allow your muscles to soften a bit, let the stretch become more passive.
2) Give yourself permission to take up space (physically and emotionally). Notice the feeling of expansion, opening, and upward lightness through parts of the body that are reaching, stretching, and opening up. Allow your feelings to be, give awareness and name to them, but then let them continue to move - out (just like your breath).
3) Relax your face. Smiling, loud sighing exhales and lip flutters are not just for fun and to be silly, they actually send messages to your brain to relax, as well as loosen up the muscles in the jaw and brow.
4) Think of something in your life you are grateful for in this moment (can be as simple as the fact you made it to class, the flower on the sidewalk, the puppy-dog on the corner).
Take the practice of sthira and sukha into your day-to-day moments. When life feels like it is moving faster than you are, pause. Give yourself some steadiness and then relax into ease. The mountain will always be there. Give yourself permission to take a break and rest, begin your climb again the next day.