The Keys or Not The Keys: Where The Heck Is My Practice
Practice Off The Mat
Vol. 1 Issue 12
Someday I will make a spare.
I have some questions for you that I enjoy exploring with students and clients, colleagues, family and friends. Do you find it easier…
…to lean into principles of mindfulness and yoga during times of ease?
…to lean into the practices during times of duress?
…to offer space, grace, and ease to other people or to yourself?
There is not a wrong answer. There are as many answers as unique individuals and their experiences. And the answers may even change depending on the day, situation, moment.
So what are your keys to finding your practice off the mat?
In the Yoga Sutras, Patanjali describes four keys that unlock four locks that impact the relationships with yourself and with those around you. The keys are described in Sutra 1.33:
Sanskrit: maitri karuna muditopeksanam sukha duhkha punyapunya visayanam bhavanatas citta prasadanam
Translated: “By cultivating attitudes of friendliness toward the happy, compassion for the unhappy, delight in the virtuous, and disregard toward the wicked, the mind-stuff retains its undisturbed calmness.”
(Note: click here to read an article from Integral Yoga Magazine about the locks and keys in the Yoga Sutras)
Practicing in the studio, at a retreat, or other sacred space is amazing to build these skills. You can be in a space that offers some ease in the practice of bringing attention and awareness to your embodied experience.
You can notice how your body, mind, heart and spirit change or adapt based on different movements, and shapes. You can observe how your breath patterns reflect the awareness and experience of the body.
All this work and effort – and make no mistake, it is work, it is effort! – fosters skills to move through Life’s experiences with a little more equanimity and grace.
Quoting my teachers “the mat is a lab for life”. When you walk off the mat, you are more prepared to meet the next moment; be it challenge, ease or something in between.
Here’s an example from this past Sunday:
The Plan: Get up early. Go for a five-mile run (one of my last runs for my Beach to Beacon prep), grab my bike gear, get to the studio, teach two classes, and then head to Peaks Island for a bike ride.
The reality: I overslept. I missed my run. I skipped breakfast. I rushed out the door grabbing Noreen’s set of keys. I arrived at the studio and realized the studio key was with my keys. I tried to get the Wi-Fi hooked up for class outside, but my laptop was not cooperating. I canceled the first class at the last moment, drove back home to get my keys. I also didn’t get my bike gear ready and was too irritable to deal with it, so I skipped out on the bike ride.
There was a lot of displeasure stemming from the embarrassment, the frustration and anger with myself. There was a bunch of emotions rippin’ through my mind and heart. I could feel the tension in my body.
It is in these moments, when I know I should find the space to not blindly react, but yet my body and mind (sometimes my mouth) need to react . A few well placed swear words, some stomping of the feet, etc.
For me, when the initial reaction beings to loosen its grip, my mindfulness tool box is found again. I can start to reach for the compassion and kindness that is so readily handed to others and offer it to myself.
And so, I work at it. The more I practice, the less and less the initial reaction is. But there is no finish line. No definition of completion. No set number of classes spent in the studio or minutes on the cushion or books read to reach the end.
The same way that you continue to keep working at bringing the practices of mindfulness and yoga out of the studio and into the world. With the gentle assurance that it is impossible to hold expectations of perfection all the time for you or someone else.
It just takes some of our skill to unlock the practice in the moment. The good news is that the keys are always with you. And even if they won’t unlock the physical door to the studio (harrumph!) they do unlock the door to offering grace and compassion for yourself and those around you.
And for those moments where you forget the keys… that’s okay too. Take a couple rounds of deep breaths. You can always pick them up whenever you need to.
This being a human thing is hard sometimes. You are okay. You are doing fine.
****