if you get this, it won’t impact your life
I’ve been doing yoga now for about 5 years. It started as something to help me keep in shape, but has turned into something completely useful to me beyond its physical benefits.
Yoga is very cliche and new age in perception, even here in Southern California where Scientology doesn’t make some people blink. It’s amazing the ideas and reactions people get when you even suggest to them that you do it, or that you think it might be good for them.
Sorry, I’m not flexible.
You can’t be serious, I’m a guy.
I don’t think I can, I’m Christian.
The original idea behind yoga as a study is really to leverage the physical body and condition it so you’re able to do hours and hours of meditation with your mind. Basically, get your body able to sit around a whole bunch, which I know seems ironic. Since you’re working hard to help make your body be able to be stationary for long periods? The ancient yogis must have been crazy.
But, meditation is a lot harder than you can imagine, especially if you think it’s just sitting around thinking. In fact, it’s the exact opposite of that, it’s trying not to think which makes it very difficult. Trying to keep your mind from wandering is the ultimate challenge to yoga practice.
So for those of you not used to yoga studios and yoga people, I can’t relay how truly accepting and non-judgmental this environment can be. To the point where people will pass gas and you won’t hear a snicker, female instructors will breast feed during the entire practice, and no one will wince, and hugs are passed around like a joint during rush week on on greek row. However, one thing can make people lose it and crack up… the inability to do an obscenely difficult pose the instructor wants you to try.
One of those moves is Tolasana (Scale Pose)
This move made me laugh, not because it’s funny, but because it’s funny to think I could ever accomplish it. And by the way, it’s normally done without the blocks for assistance.
In sensing the spirit of the room, and the frustration, our instructor Michael said something I took away from this class.
Remember, this is one of “those” poses. If you get this pose, it won’t impact your life.
What a concept to think about. Why can’t I apply this to other things in my life?
Like:
If you don’t get this condominium, it won’t impact your life.
or
If you don’t lose 15 pounds, it won’t impact your life.
Somehow it just lifts this weird sense of artificial pressure we put unto ourselves, doesn’t it?
I think I’ve learned a lot this time in yoga, I’ve learned that the next time I use customer service or tech support, I’m going to say
If you don’t act like a complete tool, it won’t impact your life.
PS: I must look like a complete moron when I go to and from yoga home on my beach cruiser. Nothing says retarded Socal Local like me on my electric blue cruiser, with white basket, wearing my shuffle and ‘phones, peddling with a yoga mat that is strapped to my back. I’m sure that is exactly the image ancient yogis conjured when they thought of this sacred practice’s future.
One of the beauties of meditation, in the not-thinking, the just being, is that even when you fail, it’s an amazing journey.
Just sitting down and accepting the flow of your brains thoughts, the tangents, the jumps around– it’s transcendental in itself. It’s often said that in order to get to nothing, you’re brain is going to throw a whole lot of typically unconscious somethings at you first, and you need to just ride the wave through that– but not hooking on to any one thing. Just letting it guide you and your body through its process as it works its way down into just being.
I think a lot of people stop trying meditation because they think they’re undisciplined, and can’t deal with the “failure” of not-thinking. If they’d just relax and take their thoughts as they come, they’d probably be able to stick to it.