"Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature,
nor do the children of men as a whole experience it.
Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure.
Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.
To keep our faces toward change and behave like free spirits
in the presence of fate is strength undefeatable."
(Helen Keller)
Limitations. I've had my share this week. Or at the very least, my mind felt as if I was limited. You know how it is. With a sliced finger, a right shoulder issue (old injury), a strange lower abdomen pull (I blame it on the crazy platforms I wore last week), and would you believe, I stubbed my little left toe. Craziness. It's times like this when it feels absolutely wonderful to have a body, haha.
Seriously though, at the beginning of the week I wasn't feeling great during my morning mat ritual. It's easy to slip into what's going wrong instead of what's going right. A reminder. Yoga practice is not a performance, but a dance of breath and movement. Healing synergy. When connecting breath and movement, adding nothing more, pretty cool things start to take shape. Our bodies melt like butter on bread with no added effort of our own.
Yoga practice takes the entire body into a unified space. One reason why with injury we have no other option but to deal with the limitation. We don't work only one area of the body. Every cell, every part, come together completing the puzzle. Everything matters. Everything is connected.
Once again, giving me the opportunity to feel my way through the practice versus just doing it. Everything opens, and all I had to do was shift my perspective.
Limitation into limitlessness.
Limitation into limitlessness.
Simply being open to the experience took me down a path of discovery - not sure what would even come of it. Forced to slow down, heightening my sensitivity. Lead into a intuitive space, no thinking, just feeling, breathing in each moment into the next. What I learned is the limitations were far from limiting, but an opportunity to expand into a broader perspective. To deepen. To unfold. To embrace whatever is here. Now.
In this space I experience the truth. I am more than this body that forever changes. I feel the greater energy that pervades every cell in the body, that pulsates through every being on the planet. I am whole again, and anything is possible.
7 Insightful Comments:
potent stuff. thanks:-)
This is a beautiful post. As me and my yoga grow and mature together I come to the realisation more and more powerfully that it is NOT about the asanas - it's about the practice.
A nourishing, gentle practice, or even a completely asana-free practice of pranayama and meditation are some of the most powerful transformative tools I know of.
As you put it so beautifully, limitation becomes limitless.
peace!!
injuries and sicknesses tend me remind me to be grateful for the miracle of my body and its nonstop functioning without rest.
It is very heart touching post. I can understand your feelings.
yoga wear & yoga classes
It's a little off topic perhaps, but I really must thank you for the point you made a few posts/weeks back, where you hi-lighted the fact that each & every practice is a discovery. I've thought about that a lot of late, and it's made it easier to get on the mat (what I always found to be one of the hardest parts). Maybe it's a 'man' thing, but prior to thinking about that, I was often very 'mission-specific' and, boy, that got tough, especially at those times when you plateau and feel you're getting nowhere. So, here goes...
THANK YOU. I love checking in on your blog. Good stuff!
so true! our limitations teaches so much, bring forth so much better understanding of the practice and show us the limitlessness of our being... x
Thank you everyone for your comments and insight. I'm delighted to hear from you.
XOXO.
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