LISTEN TO YOURSELF
If there is a habit, I would implore everyone to cultivate, it would be observing yourself.
Just sit with yourself …alone, in silence.
At the end of any yoga session, the traditional kind at least, there is a pose known as savasana meaning dead pose. You just lie there, dead-like for a stretch in time. At the beginning of my practice, this was the most useless asana to be honest. I did not even bother, just waltz my way past it, moved on swiftly. Then I began a teacher training and noticed the emphasis placed on this one particular asana.
I overlooked this asana because it seemed too easy… why lay there. I mean, I do this every day anyway. In bed and on grass, on the floor. There is a great difference, something small and overlooked called intentionality. So, I tried at it.
Nothing has ever tied in a session as well as this one asana did. Just being there with the body, listening to it. I felt the muscles speaking to one another, I could feel my body adjusting, the bones do this, and the ligaments change that. I lay there and listened to my body shift and change and adjust, I never felt better. I had to keep pushing to sit longer with the intention of hitting 15 minutes. That’s a short time, yes but felt like an eternity being in silence doing nothing with yourself.
Yes, I hit the mark. I began listening to more than just the body. I became aware of a different part of myself, the mind. I remember thinking, “Wow, that’s loud!” I could not understand how I stood the ruckus up there …it literally would not stop. It's been a while since then, I learnt to quiet my mind in time. Until now …
Lying there silent, I could not get to be quiet at all. Again, I thought “That’s loud, really loud!” No wonder I couldn’t think straight. I have been going through a rough patch emotionally and after a while of being like this it was too easy to fall back into old models. Things like “Why do I have to be the one doing everything… Well, I too can act indifferent… blah blah blah.” Get the drift.
I couldn’t break out, break free and what ensues is the endless bottomless pit of despair that feeds negative thoughts which then feed the downward spiral. The monster just keeps getting bigger. Then I savasana and “Wow, no wonder I can’t think straight. It's too damn loud in here!” Of course, you remember the importance of you practices and why you set them up in the first place!
Sit down and listen to yourself, observe yourself and just be with yourself. How much trouble would man be able to spare themselves if they only could. Not to be judgmental and yes it does sound judgy, that you cannot is an implication that you really must try to do this more just to find out what is going on up there.
To allow yourself time to really get to know you.
To hear your own self out.
To give yourself time and compassion.
The hardship is not gone away but I am in a better place to take an objective view, step back from my own sob stories and stop setting myself up a victim in every story.
