Spring always surprises me.
I think I am over-prepared for the “long winter” everyone keeps talking
about, so come early March, when the buds start to form, I’m thinking, “these
flowers are ‘cray.’ It’s still winter
for another couple months.” But
thankfully, I’m wrong, and the daffodils and hyacinth are soon blooming all
over the place, and there is still sunlight at 7pm (with a little help from
daylight savings time), and it’s Spring.
Spring is many a yoga teacher’s favorite time of year,
because it’s easy to talk about as a metaphor for your life and practice. A great time to remind people of their own
opportunities for change. A time to be
reborn (note: this is very different from un-die, which is what Jesus
did). I am fully on the “let’s all burst
into beautiful flowers this spring” train.
In fact, Spring makes a lot more sense to me as a time to make a change
in yourself than New Years. New Years
resolutions are based on a bizarre calendar system that has little to do with
anything besides keeping track of what days you need to go to work. January doesn’t feel like a good time to
change; it’s a time to hunker down.
Perhaps you could get away with creating some discipline in something in
January, but when it comes to sweeping, growing-type changes, January seems
like it’s working against you.
But it’s Spring now, let’s grow! Here’s how.
Firstly, you must recognize that you can change. I think to
many people, including myself, this is actually the biggest barrier to
change. We say that we want to be
different, and we may even say that we know we can be different, but we don’t
really truly open our hearts to believing it.
I feel that a very similar problem keeps a lot of people from really
knowing love, fyi. Try this: when you see all the new flowers
coming up from the ground, strong and alive after a winter of being half-dead
and asleep—and maybe your personal winter
of sleep has been very long—recognize that if that little plant can do it,
you definitely can. You have more brains
than a plant. You know how to walk and
sing and stuff, so you can def do what a plant can! (Except for making your own food from the
sun, they win there).
Continue to practice recognizing the fact you can change
until you actually believe it and feel it.
Hints that you are really feeling it: a smile spreads across your face,
you feel like anything is possible, walking feels lighter and more fun, you
look more beautiful to yourself in the mirror, you WANT to do those things that
you have always said you were going to do RIGHT NOW. Christians like to call this feeling “Jesus’s
love” but I think of it more as seeing clearly.* If you have truly reached this stage, the
actual changing will be much easier. For
instance, you might not desperately crave the sugar you have been trying to eat
less of, or you might be inspired to draw a picture instead of watch TV.
Now the trick is to find this feeling as much as possible.
If you have found it once, you can definitely find it again, but it may take
some practice. While you are working on
changing, whether you are trying to change something physical, emotional, or
otherwise life-related, keep trusting that you can. I choose to remind myself that “I can
actually be different” and “my life can be better” and “I can have everything I
dream of for myself” often. I tend to
forget these things, and when I do, everything seems harder. When things feel hard, I tend to not do
them. So remember change is easy! Just let it happen. Don’t be fooled into
thinking that “let” is a passive thing here.
You must actively create a belief that change can happen, and once you
do, the rest will be a lot easier.
*Yoga Lesson: Seeing clearly could be considered the
ultimate goal of yoga. The meditation
and lifestyle practices of yoga are meant to help you see truthfully. It is taught that one’s perceptions are
clouded by avidya or obstacles, which keep us from “clear understanding”. This includes ego, attachment, rejection, and
fear. The vritti are the movements of
the mind, or the things the mind does besides seeing clearly. The teachings of yoga include many tools that
we can use to work to get past all of these things and be in a state of clarity
(sattra).
No comments:
Post a Comment