Balance

I always tell my yoga students to resist the impulse to judge themselves harshly in a pose because we all have different gifts. Some have great hips and find hip openers easy, to others (like myself) they are difficult and require true yoga focus and awareness to breathe into softening. Other's have great hamstrings and bend themselves in half at the drop of a dime. Still others have limber spines and have no trouble with backbends. Some of it is how you are built, some of it is from aware practicing but we all have things that come easier to us than others.

My gift is balance. Or should I say focus since they go hand in hand...I joke with my students sometimes when they are frustrated with balancing and glare at me just standing there on one leg, "I have the reverse of ADD, instead of my attention being distracted easily, I have a hard time dragging my focus away once it's there. I have OAD-- Overly Attentive Disorder" If you've ever been in one of my classes when someone has barged in disrupting the class, you will see how difficult it is for me to be bumped out of my zone and then have to get back in. Usually takes at least 2 breaths. Ha ha...it's just practice.

One of the things that balance has taught me, besides the fact that it requires focus first and foremost, it that you have to understand your center. It's a great metaphor for life. Once you "get" that you will be swayed in all directions but as long as you return to the center you will not be knocked off your roots. Going too far to the right or to the left will just topple you over. (Great lesson for politics, huh?)

Wind (thought) comes by, sway with it, return to center. Don't try and resist it... that will just break you in half. Watch a tree, the breeze comes, they sway, the breeze goes, they stand tall.

Think about the things in your life that you obsess about. Obsessing about anything is taking you too far from the center. Allow the thought, and allow it to keep going. Can't do it, you say? Then maybe you don't know where your center is.

Finding the center is central to balance.

What gives you roots?
What allows you to grow?
Where is your structure?
What feeds your soul?

There's your center. Also known as Source. It's the life force inside of you, it's what's really important, not just distraction. So many people fritter their lives away focusing on distractions without ever once feeling that magnificent Source of power that lives right inside of them. It makes me sad.

Every class I teach has balance as a large part of it. You can tell so much about people by how they approach balancing. Some give up immediately, just walk on over to let something else hold them up. Other's dig in, shoulder's up to their ears, holding on for dear life, trying to PROVE that they can balance, refusing to budge an inch. Still others start out fine but get blown away with their first thought which is usually "look at me! I'm balancing!" and off they go...

Long time yogis, ones who really "get" what yoga is all about, approach balancing the same way they approach all their poses.

Start with your foundation.
Root your feet.
Relax and find your breath.
Focus within
Accept what is, if it's there, it's there, if it's not, watch for what is.

In other words, Relax, Breathe, Feel, Watch, Allow....

Every time. Every pose. Or every day of your life. Or every moment. Just returning to center. Over and over. And settling in. Breathing. Yeah. Look there's another.

I could stand here all day. Just watching. Where are you centered?