YOGAJOURNAL.COM / 14 / FEBRUARY 2018
If we can
relax our
habitual
thoughts, we
begin to get
familiar with
the flow of
our own
experience.
We can start
to look inside
ourselves for
growth.
COURTESYOFCYNDILEEcontinued from page 12cold, practice Ujjayi Pranayama
(Victorious Breath); if you’re hot, try
Shitali (cooling) Pranayama instead.
There are various modalities avail-
able to us, designed as yogic course
corrections, so to speak. Yet, in the
end, course correcting is not what
practice is all about. Yoga is not an
aspirin. It’s not about making things
fit us so that we can feel better. In
fact, when we approach yoga that
way, we actually create our own
roller coaster. Oooh, I’m too cold;
I’m too hot; my arms are too short;
it’s too noisy in here. We are always
measuring. And all too frequently,
nothing is just right.
So then, what is our practice
about? It’s about getting familiar—
with ourselves, our minds, and our
habits, including all the ways we
habitually create our own discon-
tent. Rather than trying to make
ourselves more comfortable—by
adding props, or wishing the ham-
mering noise would stop or the
weather were different—what if we
tried to expand our comfort zones?
I believe the first step toward doing
this is recognizing how we create
our own discomfort.
Asana is a great method for
this recognition, because a lot of
feelings—both physical and emo-
tional—come up when we move
our bodies. When we take interest
in this idea, we can begin to get fa-
miliar with the difference between
feelings and thoughts. Thoughts se-
duce us, tempting us to get hooked
on story lines about feelings and
emotions that have already changed
and dissolved. The hammering out-
side these windows is annoying, dis-
tracting, and threatens to ruin this
yoga class. But will the hammering
do all of that, really?
If we can stay with our feelings
and relax our habitual thought re-
sponses, we begin to get familiar
with the flow—the vinyasa—of our
own experience. We can start to rec-ognize that everything that arises
also dissolves. Every noise and si-
lence, sadness and delight—it’s all
impermanent. Our asana practice
can help us simply be with whatever
it is that comes up.
When we can do this, we can
start to look inside ourselves for
growth. We can trust the practice
itself—the practice of witnessing
our lives. Can we show up fully for
this? Can we pay attention and al-
low ourselves to be more curious
about the way things are rather
than focusing on how we may be
able to manipulate the situation
to fit our current desires?
Instead of trying to re-establish
our equilibrium from moment to
moment, we may find that we can
ride noise and silence, hot and cold,
yes and no, and joy and sorrow, just
as a ship in the ocean stays afloat
by rolling with the waves. Instead
of losing equilibrium and needing
a course correction, we become
nimble, curious, and resilient. Our
options expand. And as we learn to
trust the practice, we learn to more
fully trust ourselves.Cyndi LeeDHARMA TALK
Cyndi Lee, founder of
New York City’s OM Yoga
Center (1998–2012), is the author
of Yoga Body, Buddha Mind.
Her most recent book is May I
Be Happy: A Memoir of Love,
Yoga, and Changing My Mind.