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. 

Trikonasana part 2

I am letting go of expectations

After focusing yesterday on fully committing I decided to go back to do another yoga session today. I felt more motivated and positive heading into the practice because I was committed to give my full effort. However, before the 90 minutes had even begun I started to think ahead. I worried about how my body would respond, if I would be able to hold the poses throughout, or if I would get dizzy again and have to take a break. After writing about fully committing and how much I dread triangle pose I had better do it this time!

Instead of being present in the moment I was building a mountain of expectations for me to climb. When I create a set of expectations I undermine my ability to be in the now and I set myself up for disappointment. Expectations create an arbitrary measuring stick that can determine wether I feel happy and successful, or disappointed and failure. This does not mean that I should give up trying to do my best, but rather that I surrender the need to control the outcomes. For example, if I set an expectation in my yoga practice that I should be able to go deeper into each pose than last time I might ignore where my body is and push it into strain or injury. Expectations ignore where I am at, and tell me only where I should be. Even when I have fully committed and given my very best, an unmet expectation tells me that I am not enough. 

When I am fully committed to a task and willing to give my full effort I can be okay with whatever the outcome is. Dropping expectations stops me from shoulding all over myself and others. It helps me to focus more on the process instead of the product.  Today I will let go of expectations and realize that my best effort is always enough. 

Road trip

I approach life with patience

Last year we took our 2 oldest children to Disneyland.  It was decided that we would split the drive to California over 2 days, but that no mention of the happiest place on earth would be made until after we had arrived.  At first it was tough to dodge some of the frequent questions about where we were going, but it was much better than 11 hours of, "are we there yet?"  My girls' enthusiasm always trumps their ability to be patient and present in the moment.  In that same sense I am often guilty of impatience with myself when considering my growth process. 

I am not where I want to be...yet. It does not matter that I have not reached my destination. I am exactly where I need to be right now.  Even when I do reach a goal, I may see that I still have further to go in refining the vision I have for myself.

The product of my hopes is only relevant in its' ability to help me chart my course. From that point my task is not to lament the distance I have yet to travel, but to set myself in motion and patiently persevere. My focus is to take a single conscious breath, and then another. To take one step in faith, and then another.  In so doing I patiently embrace the process of living.

One step at a time

All of my energy is focused in the now

Life is complex. There are no easy fixes in my relationships, in the personal problems I face, and even things I take for granted can trip me up if I move too quickly.

My children's knees are rarely without scrapes or bruises. I sometimes wonder how it is that they seem to be constantly falling down? Walking and running is actually an intricately complex process. From the balance mechanism in the inner ear, to a multitude of muscle groups in the body working together, each step is essentially the process of falling forward and then catching and regaining balance. My children know how to walk, but it is when they lose focus that they fall. Usually it involves getting somewhere too quickly, not noticing what is around them, or watching where they have been instead of where they are going.  I have also had plenty of personal experiences of not paying attention to what I am doing.  I have frequently tripped trying to walk up stairs or I run into things as I walk by.  

I can not reach my goals or get where I want to go in one step, by looking behind me, losing focus, or gazing too far ahead. I take each step grounded in the moment.

Busyness as vice

I am consciously engaged

Functioning on auto-pilot or killing time will not help me accomplish my goals or avoid unwanted living patterns. When I am engaged in making conscious decisions about my life and actively pursuing my goals it keeps me pointed towards where I want to be. It matters less if I accomplish them but more if I am making choices that keep me moving in the right direction.

Life is not a bunch of things to get checked off a master to-do list. It is also not about just being "busy," because that can just as easily be a type of unconscious living. Sometimes resting, playing, connecting, or just being in the moment is the most important type of conscious living I can be engaged in. I am a human being, not a human doing, and today I am consciously engaged in that process.

The gift of today

I am fully present in the moment

I wonder sometimes how much of my day I spend living outside the reality of right now.  I am capable of filling my thoughts almost constantly with something other than what I am doing or where I am.  What would life be like if I lived each moment fully present with myself and my surroundings? 

At this time of year it is easy for me to get lost in the nostalgia of the past, or wallow in the memory of some recent mistake.  My memories of those moments seem to get distorted and less realistic as time goes by.  I not only get stuck in the past but I get caught up in the worry of tomorrow.
"What lingering items on my mental to-do list are still incomplete?"
"What if ____________ happens or _____________ doesn't work out?"
I can even disregard everything that is currently happening in my life to focus on the greener pastures of tomorrow.  It doesn't necessarily matter if my thought of yesterday and tomorrow are for good or ill, in both cases I am living outside the reality of today.

The days I spend living in the past or future seem to fade away leaving me with no memories created or lessons learned, they become wasted.  The experiences that often make the biggest difference as I walk my path are the ones I never see coming and that I can only internalize if I am present and ready to receive it.  I can not change yesterday and nothing I do can control the future and that is why it has been said: today is a gift and that is why it's called the present.

Today I will awaken my senses to experience all the beauty around me.
I will set aside the worries of yesterday and tomorrow.
I will breath deeply and ground myself in the moment.
I will receive the gift of today with gratitude and honor it in the only way possible, living it fully.