Strength and Surrender

“Love is more than just a feeling: it’s a process requiring continual attention. Loving well takes laughter, loyalty, and wanting more to be able to say, “I understand” than to hear, “You’re right."

(Molleen Matsumura)

Like life, in practice, there are openings and closing, there are peeks and valleys. The key is balancing the ever day with equanimity.

I discussed with a student/practitioner, the other day, how in yoga, we learn to come from a different place of strength. Especially, if we've been active with other sports and activities in our past.

He went on to say, "it's like you have to be strong and surrender at the same time."

And, I told him, "Wow. You said it perfectly."

It's true. In this practice we can't use brute force and will, it won't work for long. We have to move and breathe from the inside out, bringing a sense of soul into the movement. When we work from the outside in, we become fragmented. The union of ease and effort, strength and surrender are bridged by the breath that bring life blood into everything we do, the prana, the flow.

I've been hooked on flow the past few weeks, and feeling it in my own daily practice. Lately, a current seems to be carrying me along, can't explain it, but it's almost as if I'm being cradled or held in a way, like I'm getting a deeper sense of what it means to move within the stillness. Profound and lovely, it's all in the experience, and grants us when we show up regularly, through devotion, and acceptance with what stands before us, then we become a washed and cleansed by our true reality.

Working with the subtle currents that pervade the entirety of life bring completeness to what we do, and to how we are. Every micro movement has meaning. Every vinyasa brings us into a luxurious rhythm where we enter back into the pulse of the practice. The more we surrender to the heartbeat of our practice we find a strength beyond the physical. However, we must go through the physicality of our bodies to enter into this place, using it as an instrument of learning.

What amazes me most about teaching is that I only need to guide gently with firmness, and compassion, the best I can. What blows my mind, is I never have to really say a word, because once the student delves inward and touches the eternal wisdom there, and share what they find, I'm always rendered speechless, and honored to be part of their process of awakening to the presence within. It's a beautiful thing. It's a wondrous, beautiful thing.