Life is change and change is life
These last years of my life have been marked by changes stemming from illness and loss. My body has changed. My work has changed. My family has changed. These changes have ranged from the small to the dramatic. Some of the changes have been permanent in the way that only death can be, but most have been fluid in the way that life always is.
While I could never have expected or predicted any of these changes, one that has been notably surprising to me has been the way my practice has changed throughout these years. For its first fifteen years, my practice was the solid, unwavering foundation of my life. I woke up early, did my yoga, sat quietly for a little while in meditation, and did some spiritual reading or journaling over breakfast.
My practice was steady and steadying. I could not imagine it changing. You choose the metaphor: It was the wind in my sails; the battery in my battery pack; and the gas in my tank.
Even that which has never changed will change
In the wake of my brother’s death, which was to be the first in a long swath of changes, my practice shifted. As the rhythm of my days collapsed under the weight of grief and ensuing exhaustion, early mornings on my mat were simply impossible. I started to find myself practicing in the late mornings or midafternoons. There was nothing predictable about it. I was astonished that I did not care.
Even more astonishing was that I, who had been profoundly dedicated to one style of yoga for my entire “yoga” life, found that the movements which used to feel like coming home had started to feel foreign and even painful. Without much thought, I began to explore new traditions and styles and continued to do so until, years later, I realized that my physical yoga practice had transformed into something entirely new.
In the meantime, my morning “quiet time” was also shifting. I found I desperately needed not to feel rushed. I needed flexibility to follow my heart each day and do what felt good rather than what I “always did.” In the throes of crisis, I discovered that I needed to let go of my seated meditation practice. It had become physically and emotionally painful to keep “correcting” myself when my mind spun off into worries and fears. The clarity of this need surprised me almost as much as my willingness to shift gears did.
Something in me understood how important it was that I stay connected to the yearning and needs of my heart – and that doing so would keep me connected to Spirit. Rather than abandoning my practice of turning inward to connect with Spirit, I just let it change. I didn’t have a plan, yet, somehow, some way I would “discover” daily inspiration emails, poets, and books that I would read in the slowest of slow motion – pausing to journal whenever the spirit moved me.
Even our understanding can change
Recently, as I thumbed through one of my well-worn copies of The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, a quiet, kind of easy-to-ignore verse jumped off the page. Patanjali’s second chapter (Sadhana Pada) contains the instruction manual, if you will, for the practice itself. In it he lists the things we can do to help us live a free and fulfilling life. In what I had thought was a preamble but now is clearly (to me) a summary of the essence of sadhana or practice, Patanjali says that self-discipline (tapas), self-study (svadhyaya), and devotion and/or surrender to a power greater than oneself (isvara pranidhana) are necessary for your practice to bear fruit in your life.
The fact that a verse that I have read and taught countless times, suddenly lit up for me in an entirely new way, is yet another gift of these long, painful years of change and loss. Until I had experienced this much of life, that verse was lifeless for me. It pointed to important aspects of the practice, for sure, but did not seem super important in and of itself.
Yoga is a verb – you have to “do it”
Yoga, it is said, must be “done” – not just thought about or studied. It is a practice to be lived. It is not a daily escape from life, but something that will change the whole experience of your life if you are courageous enough to bring its gifts with you once you roll up your mat. For me, the sudden change in my understanding of yoga sutra 2.1 comes from this very fact. I had to live it to “get it.”
Through the lens of these last years of mine, this quiet little verse now seems like a neon sign. My practices may never again be as steady as they were for their first fifteen years, years when I believed the unwavering sameness of my practice was the manifestation of tapas. But, if I continue to practice steadily (with tapas), while paying keen attention to what is feeding me and what is not (svadhyaya) and allow that to direct the course of my practice, my practices will remain my steady foundation.
Finally, I now understand the necessity of surrendering myself over and over again to the ever-changing nature of life (isvara pranidhana). This is a deep knowing that there was no way for me to grasp until I’d experienced it on and off my mat. I know in my soul that Patanjali, in sutra 2.1, is making a promise that my sadhana will not only steady me in the upheaval and turmoil of life, but it will bear fruit in my life as it helps me to not only survive but thrive.
Self-discipline, self-study, and surrender comprise yoga in action in your life. – YS 2.1
Photo credit to the very talented Bill Ecklund