The Painter, 1997, oil on canvas
I didn’t expect it to be about breaking habits. I didn’t expect yoga to be about me at all actually. I thought it would be about something outside of me: a way of moving, of doing things with your body that someone else designed that I would learn. I thought yoga would be about everything but me, much less, such subtle and often imperceptible aspects of me as my habits.
For a while, my focus was on the poses and trying to make them. For a long while. The act of trying to get into and hold them was such a major effort. I was deeply busy with trying really, really hard. I didn’t think about, or notice anything else was happening. Some of the instructors would point out that in our effort, we might be getting judgmental about our progress and suggest dropping that — because that wasn’t going to help us do what we’re trying to do here; it was a waste of energy that we could be using in the pose, and anyway: didn’t we come here for an hour that was just for ourselves: a gift of the good-selfish kind? An hour that wasn’t about measuring up to expectations or satisfying someone else? So, how about making it feel good, too? Could we feel good in the face of a challenge?
I’d hear them, and chill out if I was on my case over how well I wasn’t doing it, or how weak I felt. Or laugh at how I hadn’t even considered the possibility of feeling good then. I was going for something that seemed to be outside of me. And, that was fine. It was good to have goals.
I always felt better after class. Sometimes a little looser in the shoulders, sometimes a little stronger. Sometimes namelessly better. Intellectually, I knew that this kind of activity— a good sweat, learning to breathe fully, increasing strength and flexibility [however slowly] —was good for me. That kept me coming back. I didn’t really know what was happening. I couldn’t feel yet how I was changing myself from the inside out.
Over time, I did increase my strength and flexibility. It took a lot longer than I expected it would. For ages, it seemed that my muscles were made of rubberband. During class, I would stretch them and as soon as I let go, they would go right back to their original tightness. Sometimes that was totally annoying. Most of the time, it was funny. I had been saying that I wanted to slow down. Be careful what you wish for, right? Progress here was slower than any slow I had every experienced in anything else.
I stuck it out [not typical for me], convinced that this was a good idea regardless of whether I enjoyed it all. Bit by bit, I relaxed into the process of it. Through repetition, I began to embody what they were telling us in class: that it was about this moment right here and right now and who I could be for myself in it. That judgment wasn’t going to help me get anywhere or become anything. It was, instead, an obstacle between me and experiencing the moment at hand as it was. More than what I wanted it to be about, or what I thought it should be about: how was it? This moment, my experience of it.
What I found then was that, with this awareness, I could choose. I could act: as usual, or try something new. I was breaking habits.
All difficult situations are the same in essence: something I didn’t want to happen is happening or something I wanted to happen isn’t. As I go in and out of poses, paying attention, I hear and feel my responses. Lots of them are reactive, my same-old same-old in the face of something that’s hard for me to do—or easy. What I do with the easy stuff is also habitual. Like, I often slow down toward the end of a race, or zone out when doing something I already know how to do. Is that a habit I want to reinforce?
While I do sweat through a sequence of poses in class, it’s less and less about making shapes with my body, though I do enjoy that. The poses are tools I use to build self-awareness. My broader purpose here is:
- to better understand how my mind and body work,
- to pay attention to what they [I] typically do [my reactions & choices]
- and to notice what that feels like for me — mentally, emotionally and physically.
By doing this, I uncover my habits: the good ones and the bad. And then get to decide what to reinforce and what to break. And, by allowing it to be slow-going, I get to hear how so very much of what I do, believe and expect is habit-based.
Posted on August 13, 2010
0