My friend Bob McCandlish is blogging here on Madison Patch about his "10 Day Yoga Journey" that he took with me at my studio Inner Strength Yoga. In he is describing a class where the focus was on letting go and making discomfort your friend. Or at least not your enemy. Sometimes in yoga (and in life) we get uncomfortable and we tend to hold on to tensions and stress because at least we know that feeling. Even though it hurts it feels safe. Because letting go is scary, what if we don´t like what comes out on the other side? It is almost like throwing yourself out of a cliff, into the unknown.
But the thing that is so uncomfortable in that moment might not have anything to do with the acctual physical pain in your body. It might be something deeper, like anger, sadness, jelousy, anxiaty, frustration or fear. Feelings that all of a sudden are bubbeling up, and our first reaction is to ignore them or push them back down. Or allow our mind to play tricks with us, allow our mind to tell us that "this pose is aweful and it hurts and I need to get out of it right now". But if you can, try to stay still and just breath. Invite your breath into those places where you feel tension, stress, anger, fear, loss or numbness. In your body and in your mind.
Somethimes we just have to stop thinking, stop holding on and just let go. We just have to challange ourselves, to push through to be able to get out on the other side. Just breath and trust in it.
Enter into your body, into a solid place. Don´t go somewhere else. Throw away all thoughts of imaginary things and stay firm in that which you are.
- Kabir
