Have you ever noticed how the world slows down when you close your eyes and deepen
your breath? Lately, I have been intentionally stopping and slowing down, as I found there was pace running my life that was in-congruent with my nature. Our appointments, to-do lists and obligations seem to suck all the juice out of our lives and leave us over stimulated, over spent and over the edge of our sanity. If you think about it, the need for sedatives and distractions so that we can relax is kind of insane. We often end up sleeping too much or too little, eating too much or too little. We loose our balance.
The world would not come to an end if you disengaged for a day. Life would still continue if you cancelled your appointments, threw out your lists and dropped your obligations. Seriously, it would. It is our self-absorption and inflated self-importance that keeps us running on this hamster wheel. We are not doing it for anybody else. We are doing it for ourselves.
We run to keep up, because we fear that we will loose something if we can't. What is the worst possible thing that could happen if it were lost? Imagine that. Imagine the worst possible thing that could happen, and allow yourself to feel the suffering of that loss. Then remember you only imagined it, and realize nothing changed. For the most part, fear exists in our imagination. What is real never changes. As difficult as change can be, nothing important ever changes.
Loosing what we are attached to is painful, but we can't control what happens in life. We can, however, if we slow down, catch the moment. In the moment, is that peace we crave. In the moment is that awareness that never changes. It only knows, "I am conscious. I am breathing." What else is there that we ever truly know for sure?
In efforts to slow down so that I can catch the precious moments of my existence, I have been practicing some Restorative Yoga. In this practice you use props to support yourself so that the body feels no struggle with itself in a posture. I hold each pose for at least 5 minutes and some even 10. I just lay there supported, breathing, being. It's the best part of my day.
The biggest struggle with Yoga is the inability to be still. The biggest struggle with life is also the inability to be still. It is in stillness that we connect to the depth of our being, the core of our existence, the unchanging, eternal source of juice that breathes the Universe.
The world would not come to an end if you disengaged for a day. Life would still continue if you cancelled your appointments, threw out your lists and dropped your obligations. Seriously, it would. It is our self-absorption and inflated self-importance that keeps us running on this hamster wheel. We are not doing it for anybody else. We are doing it for ourselves.
We run to keep up, because we fear that we will loose something if we can't. What is the worst possible thing that could happen if it were lost? Imagine that. Imagine the worst possible thing that could happen, and allow yourself to feel the suffering of that loss. Then remember you only imagined it, and realize nothing changed. For the most part, fear exists in our imagination. What is real never changes. As difficult as change can be, nothing important ever changes.
Loosing what we are attached to is painful, but we can't control what happens in life. We can, however, if we slow down, catch the moment. In the moment, is that peace we crave. In the moment is that awareness that never changes. It only knows, "I am conscious. I am breathing." What else is there that we ever truly know for sure?
In efforts to slow down so that I can catch the precious moments of my existence, I have been practicing some Restorative Yoga. In this practice you use props to support yourself so that the body feels no struggle with itself in a posture. I hold each pose for at least 5 minutes and some even 10. I just lay there supported, breathing, being. It's the best part of my day.
The biggest struggle with Yoga is the inability to be still. The biggest struggle with life is also the inability to be still. It is in stillness that we connect to the depth of our being, the core of our existence, the unchanging, eternal source of juice that breathes the Universe.
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