I’ve been doing yoga for just over four years and boy has it been a journey. Much can be written here, so in the interest of time, I’ll focus on my most recent realization, which came from doing the standing bow.
As you see from the picture above, the pose is all about balance. Yes, flexibility helps to get closer to the ideal, but it’s the balance that underpins how far you get in the posture.
At first, I tried to muscle myself into it … and I did a lot of falling over…
Then I started to feel my way into the pose by letting the pose “happen.” More specifically, every time I started to worry about falling over, I rechanneled the focus to my breath. It helped for sure …
Now, however, I achieved a whole new level of mastery by doing something totally counterintuitive … I actually expect and look forward to the balance struggle.
Whereas before, the balance struggle would trigger fears of failure that, through breathing, I tried to fade into the background. Now I am actually welcoming it …. and I rarely fall out.
In the past, even with the calming breath, inevitably I would accept that I did my best and plunge with peace. Now, because I anticipate the challenge, I enjoy the process of getting back to the balanced state and as such started to leverage more muscles which earlier I assumed had to be locked out to stay still.
Come to think of it, the process of recruiting all of my body parts gives me greater peace because I expanded my understanding of what peace is.
So, I can’t help but wonder. Can’t something that at first glance looks like war, be actually be peace in disguise?
Kind of like me, as a recovering codependent, avoiding a talk with someone about an issue, because I’m afraid it will ruin the relationship … In almost all instances bringing issues to light … although never completely pleasant has always improved the relationship. In rare chances that it didn’t, relationships were redefined … either way, the seeming act of confrontation was actually a required peace process step.
What does peace mean to you? What areas in your life are you avoiding that when confronted would actually increase your peace?
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