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OPEN MIND OPEN BODY The Yoga of Connection |
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Week 38: Enjoy the Silence & Recharging This week, I want to share a beautiful and insightful response to last week's email from a member of our community. It's not a question and I don't have any comment to make on it; it stands by itself as a reflection I think you will appreciate. (Let me also take this opportunity to remind you that your responses to the weekly emails are a wonderful way to contribute to this class and I always appreciate receiving them.) That is further on in the email. The other idea that has been coming up in the discussion boards and my own teaching is a question: How do we know when we need to relax, and how do we know when we need to re-engage with something that take a lot of energy, but recharges us in the end? I was asked to present at a panel discussion on the theme "Relax to Recharge", and my initial reaction to the proposed discussion was, "What about the other part of recharging -- re-engage to recharge?" We can feel low on energy because we're spending it without resting; but we can also feel low on energy because we aren't engaged in the activities that give back to us. Both situations can make us feel exhausted, but they are unique vicious cycle. No amount of relaxation (in the sense of withdrawal and rest) can replace the energy you get from activity and creativity. And no amount of filling (or, in some cases, cramming) your life with activity can replace the basic need for quiet and rest. We tend to choose one cycle and repeat it to exhaustion; this pattern shows up in how we choose the kind of yoga we practice. Sometimes, when what we need is a vigorous that will spark some fire and joy, we don't think we have the energy for anything except the most gentle practice. Sometimes, when what we need is a long savasana, we commit ourselves to a challenging, "busy" practice. And hopefully we learn how to let our practice balance these cycles in a more skillful way. I encourage you to be curious about what kind of yoga practice makes you more likely to get out of bed the next day, ready to face the world and eager to experience life -- and to use this principle to guide decisions about any activity you have the freedom to choose to do. A Prompt for Asana Practice From a nuts-and-bolts perspective on building a yoga practice that creates that kind of balance, I can start to address a question on the discussion board: "I have never been one to just "relax" while doing yoga but I figured now would be a good time to build my practice from the bottom up by starting out with the most simplistic things. Any suggestions? I can see myself trying to do a chaturanga tomorrow." My most simple suggestion is to take active poses that you enjoy, or intense stretches you might be tempted to push in, and experiment with ways to use props so that you feel totally supported in them. Some standing poses you might need to break apart. For example, virabhadrasana A (warrior one) can become two supported poses: a supported lunge (back knee supported on a blanket, hand resting on the floor or blocks) and a support backbend over pillows, blankets, or a bolster, with the arms stretched overhead and supported on the floor or with props. On the flip side, if your practice tends to the gentle, and you aren't feel recharged by it, consider trying to turn your favorite "easy" poses into balancing poses. Almost any shape (or pose) can be made a balancing pose, for example by shifting your foundation from sitting or lying down to balancing on your sitzbones or standing. The creativity required to transform poses into balancing poses adds the kind of focus and engagement in your practice that may be recharging. Below is the email response to last week's email - enjoy, and take care, Kelly *** This week's prompt caught my attention because I've been working (and struggling) with this idea of silence for some time now. In my life, I have noticed this idea manifest itself in two different ways: first, as you describe, in how we spend our time and how we behave during our daily lives; and secondly, on a more macro scale, how we deal with stillness in our life's journey, as we flow from one life stage to another. In my daily life, I've found that I often distract myself from silence especially when I'm going through difficult times and am feeling poorly about myself. I completely avoid anything that might invoke self-reflection -- journaling, meditating, looking at myself in the mirror, quiet walks alone -- fearful of what the quiet moments might reveal, ashamed to "see" myself. Even though I know from experience that these quiet activities are often the strongest medicine and the quickest healers, I avoid them during my worse times and re-engage in them only when I am in a better mood. It's in this context that I've found yoga asana to be a great in-between activity that helps me make that transition from feeling horrible to feeling okay enough to journal and have a sitting practice again - the miracle of yoga. Whereas the thought of complete silence in meditation may seem overwhelming and undoable during chaotic times in our lives, the very physical and active aspects of asana make yoga a more manageable and inviting alternative. I have found that my mind is docile and even thirsty for silence, after a rigorous practice. The second type of silence I've noticed operates at a larger scale. It describes a transitory stage in the movement of our lives, perhaps better described as a stillness. This stillness might emerge after an obvious life event has occurred (i.e. moving away from home, graduating from school, getting married, accomplishing a life-long goal, watching kids grow up and leave home, ending a relationship). Other times, it emerges more subtly, perhaps as a feeling of stagnation in our lives, a feeling of having lost footing, a forgetting of our direction, purpose, meaning or who we are in this world. Regardless of why it emerges, these quiet moments always invoke the same discomfort that I feel during silence in daily life - I feel antsy, fidgety and impatient. I am learning that it is equally important to embrace the stillness during these times of our lives as it is to embrace moments of silence during our daily lives. It is sometimes even more challenging because these moments can last a longer time, sometimes months or years. Zora Neale Hurston captures this in her book, "Their Eyes Were Watching God": "There are years that ask questions and years that answer." I am experiencing an odd type of stillness in my life right now. **** Gratitude to the author of the above email. Share your reflections at http://www.openmindbody.com/discuss Login: yoga Password: connect
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