Savasana

I find serenity in times of turmoil

It has become unofficial yoga week. Today I went into my session with the goal of focusing on my breathing throughout the practice. It is easy for me to lose focus when sweat is dripping from places I didn't even know had the capacity to perspire (knees?), the room feels like the temperature is just above hell and just below the sun, and as my body is stretching and pulling in ways that seem entirely unnatural my mind is screaming that this is all insane.  Those are the most important moments for me to relax and breathe.

Peace does not come from the absence of war. The ability to find stillness and calm comes from practicing it when everything around me is in disarray. I had several moments today when I lost my focus on breathing and surprisingly it was most difficult for me not when I was physically strained, but when I was trying to fully relax during savasana - corpse pose. In savasana what you do physically is lie on your back with heels together, feet fall apart, arms flat next to the body with palms open - you essentially lay down. Mentally it can be one of the most difficult poses. It can be just as difficult to find peace among the chaos of my own mind when I am perfectly still as it is to find it when I have things swirling all around me externally. 

Practicing staying in the moment, breathing, and letting go of expectations, fear, control, and shame helps me to be fully present. That is where I can find peace. The hurricanes of life will come and go. I can feel just as unsettled when things around me are calm, perhaps at those times I am frantic and just bracing myself for the next catastrophe to hit. Serenity does not require a certain set of circumstances to be achieved. When the chaos does come I can find the eye of the storm internally and be at peace.