Amy @ Generous Wisdom | Spacious Heart – Page 21 – Generous Wisdom

Striving & Savoring

Dear Friends,

Right now is a new moment. Breathe in and feel the new breath in your body. Breathe out and feel the old breath release. Every breath takes in the new and releases the old. There might be sadness here or tentativeness; there might also be sweetness and joy. Notice what is present with a spot of kindness. Offer yourself any amount of compassion for whatever you are feeling in this moment.

STRIVING

I’ve done a lot of striving in my day, and I bet you have too: striving for the best education, the best job, the best partner, the best family, the best meal, the best soap, the best meditation, the best yoga practice, and on it goes, possibly without end.

I invite you to join me in not striving – for a moment (or even two) – as you take in the words of Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman who speaks of striving in her poem “The Hill We Climb:’

“And yes we are far from polished
far from pristine
but that doesn’t mean we are
striving to form a union that is perfect
We are striving to forge a union with purpose
To compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters and
conditions of man
And so we lift our gazes not to what stands between us
but what stands before us
We close the divide because we know, to put our future first,
we must first put our differences aside”

Sometimes striving is necessary. And sometimes savoring is what’s needed.

SAVORING

I invite you now to look back and notice the good work you have done, just one tiny nugget of goodness you gave to the world, whether it was earlier today, yesterday, or 20 years ago.

Perhaps it was a smile, a delivery of groceries or a warm meal. Maybe you drove someone to work, school, or an appointment and then drove them home, walked your dog, or picked up trash that wasn’t yours. Or, you gave yourself permission to go for a walk, or to sit and rest.

Our striving is not for perfection, friends. It is for a life with purpose, to compose a song filled with various rhythms and key changes, dotted with eighth notes and swept with drawn out phrases and pauses, a life of tiny little nuggets of goodness. Not perfection, but purpose.

My invitation to you today: Savor what is sweet and leave the rest.

Yours in Practice,

Amy

The Universal Yogi

PS – Follow the links above to learn more about Amanda Gorman and hear her reading “The Hill We Climb.” My encouragement is to listen twice. Once with your eyes closed and once with them open (in either order).

PPS – I didn’t want to leave this out in case it might be useful: try savoring your yoga practice, instead of striving throughout the whole thing, trying to get somewhere you think you’re not. Do the yoga as something to enjoy, not to cross off your list. Practice as play.

Go play some yoga 🙂

Vinyasa, Hatha, & Creative Ashtanga

I realize the title seems to imply that this could be a lengthy explanation of definitions, differences, and similarities, but it’s really just a little story. (You might be pleasantly surprised or a bit disappointed, or maybe some of each!)

I hurt my hip in July of 2019 doing a yoga pose that didn’t really need doing, though it was fun, and I thoroughly enjoyed the experience. Until I didn’t. In July of 2020 my knee decided it had had enough. What it had enough of, however, I wasn’t really sure. All I had been doing was walking on cement sidewalks a few miles three times a day since April. (Remember April, May, and June of 2020?) I suppose that, combined with an active childhood that included a splash of gymnastics, 16 years of jumping back (and up) in Surya Namaskara A & B, and congenitally under-developed hip sockets and other misaligned joints and weaknesses, resulted in my knee swelling up and me thinking I had gout. Thankfully, I did not have to give up my favorite indulgences. It seems I’d rather have patellar tendonosis instead.

All this is to say that I’ve been enjoying a 10 day meditation challenge, and I took a “creative ashtanga” class this morning to see how it might feel, and my left hip was like, What are you doing? And my left knee was like, Have you been meditating for a long time? My right hip flexor said, What did you do yesterday? And my right shoulder? It was like, Are you kidding me…? After all we’ve been through…? Keep in mind, I made all the postures and vinyasas fit my current body and its needs and wants, and still my body was like, Huh? This doesn’t feel right.

So. There’s vinyasa and there’s vinyasa. I still find my flow even when I’m not jumping, doing push-ups, and raising and lowering my arms a million times. I still connect my postures like strings of pearls. I still love flowing and powering in my yoga practice. It just looks different on the outside.

So. I have hip dysplasia, and I never would’ve found that out if it hadn’t been for sugarcane pose. However, I’d rather not know I have hip dysplasia. Moving forward, if a pose isn’t really necessary, and it’s bordering on extreme, I’m not going to do it. (I’m sort of laughing as I type this because I couldn’t do any sort-of-extreme posture anymore. My body’s not havin’ it!) It kind of reminds me of the time my 2-year-old hit me smack in the third eye with a wooden block. I had enough sense to think, Well? That’s something. I suppose I’ll never be hit in the head exactly the same way ever again. And going forward, I steered clear.

So. What’s changing for you?

For Practice

What have you been forcing yourself to do that you really don’t want to do anymore (or ever really did), and you have a choice around it? What have you been putting yourself in the way of when you could shift to the side?
What would it feel like to practice the way you want to practice, not the way you think you should practice?
How do you think it would be to practice asana simply by feel. Instead of visualizing images of yoga postures (from books, apps, sites, or even in the mirror), close your eyes and feel your way into only the asana your body manifests comfortably. Yep, I said it – comfortably!! Asana = comfortable seat. 😉

Happy Practicing,

Amy

The Universal Yogi

Unfolding

Just last week I decided the word Unfolding would be my guide. Throughout the next 12 months or so I figured I would discover some wisdom looking through this lens, but I didn’t expect to find so much so soon.

Being & Doing

If you read the clock post (Hurry Up & Rest), you know I’ve been wrestling time and working with control, productivity, and rest for as long as I’ve been a mother (17 years). My perspective began turning a corner by noticing ease and feeling what it feels like to allow. Adding this third practice has given me new eyes.

Ease was something I did, and allowing was something I decided, which also has that sense of doing. But unfolding? This is like allowing times TEN. This isn’t me doing anything. It’s me being undone. And not in a bad, scary way, but in a fascinating, journeying kind of way.

It’s almost like waiting. I’m peeling off the layers of doing and kinda hangin’ back, watching what’s moving where, and who’s doing what, and how things are shaking out. And myself, too; I’m watching how I respond to what’s being revealed, or sometimes what’s being lived in front of me. It is a great work in balancing the being & the doing, the participating & the observing.

So what’s next? Maybe a lot less forcing and a bit more receiving? I don’t know. I’m sort of ready for the moment to come to me rather than always moving into the moment. I’m often saying, Hello, moment. Here I am. I wonder what would happen if I didn’t speak. What would all the moments say to me?

Feeling You

My beautiful and kind teacher often asks us, “How does it feel to be you, right now, in this moment?” I remember the first time I received this inquiry. It was in an iRest Yoga Nidra class, and I was totally snuggled in and supported with bolsters and blankets beneath, beside, and around me. I was so surprised I smiled out loud (not just in my mind) feeling my face move into happiness. What is this sweet thing? Who in the world is asking me what it feels like to be me?

Of course I knew who was guiding our meditation, but this question felt like it was coming from the deep, from somewhere beyond us ~ what does it feel like to be me? Perhaps it’s the moment that is asking me this question, inviting me to see and be seen. Maybe when I’m silent, and allow the moment to speak to me, this is what it offers – an opportunity to see and be seen, which is really to love and be loved.

To Explore

There is much to explore here. Choose one of the suggestions below that seems interesting or supportive and try it out. Or, make up your own experiment and let me know how it goes.

Unfolding – what does it feel like to allow a moment to unfold in front of you? During simple daily interactions or activities, notice any impulse to intervene, lead, follow, speak, or act. Pause to notice if the impulse fades, and watch what’s happening around you. Decide to act on the impulse, adjust it, or let it pass. Continue to notice what’s happening around you, as well as what sensations are present within you.
Feeling You – How does it feel to be you, right now in this moment? Take a few minutes to settle into stillness, breathe deeply, and feel sensations in your body. Instead of thinking about how you feel, experiment with feeling how you feel. Journal or sketch your discoveries.
Being & Doing – Choose a block of time (an hour, a half day, a full day, a week) and notice how often you sense that you are engaged in doing, and how often you are engaged in being. Both of these ways of living are necessary and one is not valued over the other. We have to do things in order to live, such as plan, gather food, cook, study, work, and so on. These aren’t only necessary, but can be good and fun! What’s interesting to notice might be how much time we spend being alive, rather than doing life. Being alive might feel like rest or being “in the zone” or “in the flow.” “Being” doesn’t mean you are sitting still on a meditation cushion, though that is certainly one of the choices. In fact, you might not realize you are/were engaged in being until you are not.

Remember there’s no wrong or right way to explore these practices. I encourage you to make it fun. 🙂

Happy Exploring!

Amy

The Universal Yogi