Take Nothing too Seriously

What better day than Halloween to remember to make time for play? We often get caught up with all the responsibilities we have with our many roles at home and work. Even on the yoga mat we tend to be serious as we are mindfully moving body with the breath. But we aren’t going to solve the world’s problems by holding a difficult pose for 10 breaths. The best we can do is to be present as we attempt every pose we practice. We need to laugh and be silly when it doesn’t quite turn out as we expected. So this week we are finding more playfulness in our practice. It’s difficult to move from ardha chandrasana (half moon pose) to parivrtta ardha chandrasana (revolved half moon pose) and back again. It’s easy to fall out and it’s ok to laugh when we do! There is no reason to get upset about losing balance during the difficult transition. In today’s classes I’ve invited students to try to let the breath lead them through the transitions, but to be playful when they fall out.

Playfulness may also help us explore new expressions of poses we haven’t tried before. We may be more likely to try to grab our toe in vasisthasana (side plank pose) if we approach it with more silliness. A silly attitude gives us permission to not get it “right” whereas when we approach the pose with complete seriousness we may not even try to get into a pose. We have no way of knowing if we can even do the more advanced pose unless we take the risk and give it a try. Sometimes a little silliness helps lighten our mood and just give it a try.

If yoga isn’t about silliness, it is about the process without regard to the outcome. Vrschikasana (scorpion pose) is a difficult inversion. It isn’t a pose anyone will get into and hold the first time she tries. Approaching it with all seriousness might inhibit us to try the pose in the first place whereas accepting the practice as a process releases us to let go of the outcome and have fun trying.

I’ve used today’s yoga classes as examples, but anyone can substitute this week’s life challenges in place of parivritta ardha chandrasana, vasisthasana, or vrschikasana. The only way to develop personally and professionally is to try something new, slightly scary perhaps. And to take that first step often means letting go of expected outcome and just be playful!

Happy Halloween!

Choices

We are presented with choices every moment, some of which are better for our bodies than others. Although we can sometimes be overwhelmed by the number of options available to us, we always are in control of the choices we make when we eat something and when we select activities to fill our free time.

Some people choose to diet but I suggest they decide instead for the non-diet method of maintaining and losing weight. This means making choices all day long but it is a lifestyle choice that offers many options to feel satiated rather than denied food. People that maintain a healthy weight simply select the healthier foods each day. The choice is to reach for a candy bar or melon slices and berries when energy is low mid-day. People that use a healthy lifestyle approach to eating don’t alternatively gain and lose weight the way dieters do. They don’t migrate to the newest fad diet, reading about rules for the diet of the month. Instead they eat a lot of fruits, vegetables, and whole grains. Choices are numerous for snacking when the snacks are nutritious!

People that maintain a healthy weight over their lifetime choose a leafy salad as a side rather than fries when they dine out. Fried food is the food choice most associated with weight gain. Potato chips, sugary drinks including sodas and juices, red and processed meats, desserts, and refined grains are other food selections that are likely to lead to weight gain. Healthier options, particularly fruits and vegetables, can replace these less healthy options and reduce the chance of unwanted weight gain. A green leafy salad is an alternative side to French fries that offers more vitamins and less risk for weight gain. Vegetables dipped in hummus and plain stove-popped popcorn are alternatives to potato chips for a healthy crispier snack. Yogurt and nuts are healthy sources of protein and fats and consuming these foods is related to less lifetime weight gain.  If people do choose to eat red meat, they will want to choose to eat it less often and select lean meats, completely eliminating processed meats.

Counting calories and omitting selected foods based on fad diets has been found to be less effective in maintaining a healthy weight throughout life than eating healthier foods. Other healthy lifestyles correlated to maintaining a healthy weight are sleeping 6-8 hours a night, reducing television viewing, choosing wine if one is going to drink alcohol (although other alcohol is correlated to weight gain), and exercise (the more one exercises, the less weight one gains).

People have limited free time, but often choose to spend it in front of televisions. Healthier choices are to take a walk or a bicycle ride after dinner. Schedules are packed with obligations leaving little time to exercise. However, anyone can choose to use the stairs rather than an elevator when they enter a building. People often spend more time waiting for a parking spot to open up near the store entrance than the time it takes to make the healthier choice of parking further away and walking to the entrance.

It isn’t easy to maintain a healthy weight over one’s lifetime. But it is possible by making daily choices. Everyone is more in control of their choices than they realize. In fact, it is easier to control and maintain a healthy-choice lifestyle than to maintain fad diets. It is more liberating to know it is healthy to eat any of the colorful fruits and vegetables in the produce section than to think I need to limit myself to items on a fad diet list. And better, I get to choose.

Freedom

Freedom has been the lesson I keep returning to this week, (not coincidentally) timed with the country’s celebration of its freedom from a relationship that did not work to the advantage of the colonies nor the English. I have explored many ways to deepen the feeling of freedom, or moksha (liberation), on the mat that have followed me off the mat.
  

Some students requested that we work on hip openers for our Independence Day practice. We worked to soften through the hips and pelvis to find a sense of ease in several asanas (poses), including gomukhasana (cow face pose) and in many lunges and standing poses including parivrtta trikonasana (revolved triangle pose). We worked toward eka hasta bhujasana (elephant trunk pose) and astavakrasana (eight-angle pose). But these two are not easy poses. Many students did not get into them and some of the students that did were unable to hold the poses for five breaths. This is where we are presented with the opportunity to free ourselves from our egos. Difficult poses like these offer important lessons to let go of the ego that tells us we need to “nail” each pose and let us explore the pose and experience it as our bodies offers it at this point in time. We are free to develop our practice and our attention as we challenge ourselves – where is the opportunity to develop if we never practice a pose we find difficult? 

Many yoga students are challenged by hip openers like these. Others find these poses easier and need to explore freeing their egos in other poses such as shoulder openers like garudasana (eagle pose) and arm balances such as bakasana (crow pose). Whatever our challenge pose is at the moment, it will challenge us emotionally and mentally as much as it will challenge us physically. The challenging pose will become easier if we surrender into it and soften our resistance, using our breath to move into it, rather than pushing, expecting, trying and doing.

So where have I applied these lessons to my life off the mat? As a chronic perfectionist, I’ve been working on freedom from finding perfection in myself, others, and events. It is not easy for me to let go of my ego that I wrap in perfectionism. But I am more aware of softening expectations, looking for the best possible outcome perhaps, but finding something natural and generally ok about imperfection. I’ve been lengthening my breath and releasing resistance to what is and accepting it with a free and open mind. Just as every asana isn’t going to be perfect, nor will every action off the mat. If I accept freedom to experience fluctuation on my mat then I need to soften and release perfectionism off my mat.  

We find more opportunities to liberate ourselves by releasing habitual thoughts and actions. Habits by definition are the easy way to function and lead to our reaching for a less healthy food option or automatically finding the negative in someone or something. It requires more mindfulness to interrupt a habitual pattern by reaching for a peach rather than a chocolate bar when we feel stress. It is hard work, but that is where the opportunity to develop ourselves comes from. True freedom comes from controlling and interrupting patterns and habits that don’t serve us. The founders of our country declared independence from patterns that didn’t serve the colonies. The freedoms they sought did not come easy but were rewarding, liberating, and enduring much as the benefits of our yoga practice can be for us. If we could only surrender and let go of our ego then we can be free.