I recently had the privilege of working with a yoga therapist on some alignment issues, and what do you know? The intense striving and time spent in my head during a long life chapter have taken a significant toll on this body o mine. This skillful teacher helped me to develop a mantra for the path forward, as I learn to breathe more from my belly and open up my constricted chest: "I have room enough for it all; I let go of control." I have room enough for it all. I remember being drawn into both/and theories while in college. They transformed the absolute, black-and-white truths of my childhood into a wondrous grey space of paradoxes and possibilities. "I am large, I contain multitudes," Walt Whitman insisted. For years I confined this more postmodern reality to the intellectual realm, not realizing that a both/and philosophy could apply to the conflicting emotions and physical sensations within. But then I realized I could love someone and be angry at them at the same time--that I could stay connected to another while feeling a difficult emotion toward them. Such a simple thing, really, yet so easy to miss the radical potential of saying, "And this, too," when an either/or framework has set in and flourished, without our conscious consent. Only when my heart was broken did I find my way into Pema Chodron's words:
Things falling apart is a kind of testing and also a kind of healing. We think that the point is to pass the test or to overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don't really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It's just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy.
What a revelation to realize I did not have to get rid of the fear and sadness; in fact, the more I resisted their presence, the more I strengthened their control over my daily life. And how terrifying to honor the fear since I firmly believed being afraid was something to conquer, not something to relate to with kindness. Fear-based thinking also drove much of my so-called success. If I let go of control, I questioned (though not with much awareness), who will get things done? Who will protect me from harm?
I have found the neuroscience that explains my revved up nervous system in evolutionary terms to be extremely helpful. We all have this iguana brain that takes us into fight, flee, or freeze mode from time to time (and more regularly than that for many of us). I can relax into the fear a little more knowing it's shared by everyone else on this planet. I am not alone. And. AND! There is so much evolutionary promise in attending to and befriending the fear since these actions reestablish our capacity for empathy, connection, and creativity. What is more, fear's presence, when I allow myself to become aware of it without judgment, can offer useful information--data, if you will--that leads to greater understanding of the world and myself. Then the fear does not flood the landscape, and I can let there be room for the coming together and the falling apart.
As for understanding how my body simultaneously can be rooted downward and expanded upward, I'm slowly and surely feeling my way there. Poets like Rilke help me to re-member,
If we surrendered to earth's intelligence we could rise up rooted, like trees.
Surrender. What a difficult word. It requires trust in ourselves and the surrounding world. So many of us have learned that the universe is not a friendly place but, rather, one filled with enemies and warfare. But what if we, like Einstein, decided the universe is an hospitable place? According to him, such a stance would result in using "our technology, our scientific discoveries and our natural resources to create tools and models for understanding that universe. Because power and safety will come through understanding its workings and its motives." When I slow down enough to listen to my own motives, I sense that my intention to understand is stronger than my desire to control, and surrender naturally begins to take place. Understanding, after all, requires opening up, not closing down and off.
So I like my mantra. And I like the instructions to repeat it with my hands on my belly, aware of my inhaling and exhaling breath. When the words become embodied in this way, I am reminded how miraculous and precious life really is. In Kute Blackson's terms, "Every breath you take involves an interaction and communication of trillions of cells. There are universes dancing inside you." There really is room enough for it all.
"I think the most important question facing humanity is, ‘Is the universe a friendly place?’ This is the first and most basic question all people must answer for themselves.
- See more at: http://www.awakin.org/read/view.php?tid=797#sthash.IWsHNhI2.dpuf
"I think the most important question facing humanity is, ‘Is the universe a friendly place?’ This is the first and most basic question all people must answer for themselves.
- See more at: http://www.awakin.org/read/view.php?tid=797#sthash.IWsHNhI2.dpuf
"I think the most important question facing humanity is, ‘Is the universe a friendly place?’ This is the first and most basic question all people must answer for themselves.
- See more at: http://www.awakin.org/read/view.php?tid=797#sthash.IWsHNhI2.dpuf