Even Mathematicians Need A Calculator
Practice Off The Mat
Vol. 1 Issue 10
Seriously though. Does anyone know how to work this thing…?
Greetings! Sending you all love and well wishes as we prepare to move from the Spring into the Summer season ahead of us. It’s been a while since I’ve put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard as the case maybe).
This spring has provided no shortage of invitations for me to be reminded of a core tenet of the practices of yoga and mindfulness: Where attention goes, energy flows.
Frequently in class I talk about how what you do on the mat is called a practice for a reason. You use the safety of the mat to practice mindful observation. Each shape or movement offers an opportunity notice how you are feeling in the body, mind, heart, and spirit – the totality of which makes up your embodied experience. What's more - there is no such thing as perfection (as much as #yogaeverydamnday would have you believe on the ol' Instagram).
So you practice. In the moment. Choosing you. Yet when taken off the mat it is easy to lose sight of these skills. Especially when feeling overloaded, unbalanced, or stuck. It is easy to fall victim to that false state of "perfection" in whatever part of your life you are living through. This is why the practice is a resource, a guide, a tool if you will.
You can think of it like a surgeon wielding a scalpel, a carpenter a hammer, a mathematician a calculator – we need these tools to help our own lived experience.
Bringing your awareness to the wisdom of your embodied experience opens so many doors for how you choose to engage with the next moment. It can bring you away from the noise of the ego and the mind that is demanding perfection. It can bring you back to the reality of the moment, back to your true self.
You can use intentional choice to make whatever adjustment you need to feel more supported, safe, comfortable for your own unique lived-in experience.
Where attention goes, energy flows.
Our modern, technology infused, performance driven, only-results-matter culture has you pulled in so many directions and striving to meet so many expectations that it is impossible to keep up.
The result: your attention is maxed out; your energy is being given away to so many different things. You are being pulled apart in a way that you lose your own self in the process.
You. Are. Exhausted. Physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually. Maybe some of it, maybe all of it.
Family. Friends. Work. School. Teachers. Students. Volunteering. Employees. Bosses. Coworkers. Customers. Sports. Hobbies. Events. Commitments. Obligations. Pets. Community. Business.
On and on and on it goes.
Expectations of perfection, and the resulting obligations you feel, abound. Some of these are our own active choosing. Some a result of past events and experiences. Some designed by socioeconomic and geopolitical systems that relentlessly squeeze our culture. Some a result of the stories that we tell ourselves.
And all too often, what comes at the very end of the list? You. Your incredible heart. The light that exists within you.
Where attention goes, energy flows.
So that is why you practice. On one hand it allows that opportunity to release some of the pressure of the moment. And the other to help cultivate and refine the skills for off the mat experiences. Identifying what you need, giving yourself the permission and space to allow your light, your heart, your love, your grace, your kindness, your compassion to shine brighter and flow stronger.
Finding the space, grace, presence, ease, strength, grit, and endurance to know where you need to focus your attention, to be clear about what you need can be hard work. To do so with equal measures of skill and intention while not holding tightly to outcomes that you lose the kindness, love and compassion within – that is THE work.
And yet after 1000s of hours of teaching, many more 1000s of hours studying and even many more 1000s of hours of exploring my own practice – I find it cosmically hilarious that I *still* find it wildly difficult to navigate the tension that this concept creates when I try to apply these principle to all the layers of in my own life off the mat.
But as Molly reminded me a few weeks ago: even mathematicians need a calculator.
Me to me all the time: "Anything less than perfection is unacceptable"
Me to me after I finally remember these tools: "STFU. Breathe. Just take the next thing as it comes, when it comes. It is okay. You are okay."
Your practice is your tool to create alignment between feeling more balanced in the moment and how to keep moving forward on the path you need.
Where attention goes, energy flows.
Take a deep breath in. Let that breath out. No need to be perfect.
Just breathe.
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Thanks for reading. Thanks for being here in this life. Thank you so much for just being you.
Remember: You are loved. You are limitless. You are epic.
See you on the mat on Sundays.
Chris