One of my favorite local yoga teachers is a bit of a hike for me, but well worth the trip to the country. She’s named her studio well as there’s a sense of peace just by pulling into the driveway. She’s a treasure of information about the body and its physiology, but her real brilliance lies in her suggestions to approach your yoga flow practice. As I hold the poses and listen to her encouragements, I often think how useful they are to life outside the studio.
Two encouragements that have travelled with me with my flow beyond the studio are “relaxation through action” and “fill the pose, and hold it actively with strength”.
Yoga Flow: Relaxation through action
Is it possible that moving into action doesn’t require meticulous planning, effort and sweat? I don’t have to marshal my forces, work on my list, and climb up that mountain of tasks? Clearly, I don’t have a graceful, flowing ability to get things done. So it’s a real shift in perspective for me to consider that taking action can be a way of getting relaxed.
On the mat it’s so easy to see where the extra effort I use to push into a pose is wasted and painful. As is the pointlessness of the internal chatter about how hard it’s going to be and how others find it easier, blah, blah, blah. In my daily life, it’s not always so clear. Sure, the pain is acute when I’m procrastinating on something important that will take focus and vulnerability. Finally getting into action is such a sweet relief. But do I remember how relaxing it is to get into the flow? Not often enough.
Yoga Flow: Fill the pose, and hold it actively
This thought gets me through many a wavering moment. With this encouragement, Gina asks us to engage fully in a difficult moment with all the energy and strength we can muster. As opposed to the half-hearted, floppy, droopy attempt that sometimes passes as my warrior pose. To me, filling out the pose translates daily into fully stepping into the difficult tasks or conversations and holding firm while staying open. It’s dealing with the discomfort in kind of a badass way. Instead of contracting from the discomfort, it’s a way of standing tall and saying bring it on.
This week my coach, Tara Mohr, was in town and I had the chance to see her at two different events. Brilliant woman herself, she’s written the 10 Rules for Brilliant Women – a guide to standing with strength and authenticity as you add your voice to the world. I love her take on filling the pose, with the rule “Be an arrogant idiot.” She’s not really counselling that we become that annoyingly confident self-promoter who’s so enamoured with their own unformed ideas that they convince the world of their (faux) brilliance. But she’s suggesting that we adopt their unwavering belief in their abilities and take a few steps in that direction.
Image: Yoga at Sunrise
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