Dear friend,
While having a chat with a friend last week, I likened how I am feeling these days to holding a yin yoga shape. Yin yoga emphasises long passive holds to put intentional stress on the joints and connective tissues, where stagnant energy (qi) is believed to pool. When we finally ease out of the shape, the qi then flushes through the area, loosening the stagnation and restoring a relaxed qiflow.
When I first started practising yin yoga, the long holds frustrated me. Not only were they physically uncomfortable, the resounding quiet also brought to surface the frustrating fluctuations in my mind. Has it been five minutes yet? How long more do I have to stay here? Argh I have so many other things I can be doing!
But with time, and greater insight as to why we were made to hold poses for so long, I began to find ease in the stillness; I even came to relish it. When I got out of my own way (i.e. my attachment to moving), I started to notice and learn to soften areas of my body that I always habitually held up or held in; I began to explore the potential of my breath; and I truly appreciated the liberating feeling of spaciousness every time I eased out of stagnancy.
So yes, my whole life is a yin yoga pose now. Retreats and trainings have been put on hold, along with my plans to spend more time outside of Singapore to study and write. In many ways it was by no part my choosing, but in reflection, perhaps it was. After months and months of chasing after my own tail, perhaps the best prescription was for me to stop, consolidate my qi, and stay around long enough to see what the long pause brings up.
When spring comes (and it will) and it's time to move again, it will be with greater clarity and awareness of where I want to go, and a lot more appreciation for freedom, in all senses of the word. For as long as it is still winter, I will nourish my roots and await the arrival of spring.
In the words of Dave Hollis: "In the rush to return to normal, let's use this time to consider which parts of normal are worth rushing back to."
With all my love,
Leigh
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