March muses.
There’s a pause between the revered exhalation of winter and the invigorating inhalation of spring, and the shifting weather moods sweep me back to ancient yoga philosophy.
Practicing balance in the currents of change, according to the yogis, requires harmonizing two oppositional forces: steadiness and ease.
Yoga philosophy champions the intentional implementation of steadiness and ease in each pose. Weaving steadiness and ease enlivens our embodied connection to the pose, creating safety, support, and strengthened presence in the yoga practice.
And while I find marrying effort and ease into each yoga pose grounding and rejuvenating, I rely on this ancient wisdom in the off-the-mat practice of purposeful, authentic, spirit-led living, especially within the past few months.
Now, I loathe the word “busy.” I think our society worships productivity at the detrimental expense of overall wellbeing and perceives busyness as confirmation of worthiness.
Staying constantly busy distracts us from sitting with ourselves, and sitting with ourselves and with the whole package of our experience challenges, and also, clarifies and cultivates courage and compassion toward our own befriending in the journey.
Since we live in a culture of go! - do!, utilizing steadiness and ease in how we choose to approach and manage our time and meet our needs creates breath-fueled space and heart-energizing intentionality within the rushing buzz of “busy.”
And that’s what I decided to do when I entered a 2019 that hummed in opportunities.
So. I shall not use the word busy to describe the last few months. I’ll use “flow.”
The beginning of 2019 glistened and glowed in joyful, epic flow. I lean into my commitments with ease; I lean into my spaciousness with steadiness so I can wholeheartedly receive the gifts of restoration and renew in non-doing.
And then, there is an abrupt ending – of my acting class, of my improv class, a break from improv performing, a spring vacation from teaching, and I reel.
And the reeling surprises me. This introvert, who seizes blank space and revels in blocks of time freed from commitments and to-dos, stumbles into this spring cleaning of my schedule stunned and jarred and uncomfortable.
I don’t want to take a break, I realize, because I love what am I doing. The fullness of my winter schedule reflects my passions and curiosities, life-giving work.
I miss my students.
I miss my improv class.
I miss performing.
I feel lonely, and restless, and reject the tempting notion to pack my days with social interactions and impromptu plans.
In days that are supposed to be for an easygoing vacation, I struggle.
I seem to be coming off an adrenaline high. I’ve become skilled and swift in creating ease in fast-paced days but establishing a sense of steadiness on playful days spins me into an overwhelm.
This overwhelm whips a frenzy and wakes me at 6am with a racing heart.
I’m thinking of what I teach in my yoga classes, of steadiness and ease. I’m thinking of the ancient yogis, and how to stay a little closer to a shallow but secured breath as I feel myself fall into a rabbit hole of fears and insecurities.
I feel so far from myself, so distant from clarity, and especially the clarity that is cued with the expansiveness of a breath.
But this is the main reason for practice: the steadiness of the practice encourages a glimmer of ease, a silver lining keeping me moving forward through the moments clouded in confusion and body shaking fear.
At 6am on Wednesday I wake in the throes of what feels like an anxiety attack, and so I return to the steady anchor of the breath and let the breath facilitate the ease that discerns the next best thing for me to do.
And this is how I maneuver through the rest of the day. The path is never made entirely clear, the answers on how to handle the overwhelm are never made entirely clear but that steadying and easing breath informs the next step by grounding me and inviting gentle patience in my acknowledging, meeting, working with my present needs.
I write this on the other side of that day, on the other side of an episode that clutched close in almost inexplicable despair (and I could shrug and say hormones, or it was an accumulation of stresses about a car repair and waiting for answers to questions that never showed), and the staying steady, staying easy, pulls me through to a cold brew and a café illuminated in spring light.
Practicing steadiness and ease here sails in serenity. I am determined and devoted to my writing, and this determined devotion offers peace. But the real point of a practice is not to compare and practice when all of life is aligned to expectations and wishes, but to show up – especially when it’s hard and messy -- with a courageous openness.
And so as I sink into receiving the end of a spring break, a pause before the leap of a full-fledged spring, I practice the grit and the grace, the work and the wonder, the strength and the softness the ancient yogis knew would bring an enhanced aliveness to this experiencing the difficulty and glory of life as a human being.