Struggle and spiritual mastery
The Yoga Begins Now
Here we are in Spring of 2020 staring into a pandemic that seemingly has no end. And we are all in this just trying to figure things out. So many people I love and myself are trying to figure out where income is coming from in the next weeks. Others are sorting out how to work and report to the quarantine of their homes. And others feel sequestered at home because they were already working from home and now can’t go anywhere else. Some are spiraling in fear and anxiety, and others are trying to bypass it all with memes and epithets that work for a while. But for all of us, I think we hit a wall — a wall of the despair or a wall of the wide-eyed optimism. This will be a reckoning for us all and there is no escaping it.
I have offered my thoughts on the outcomes of this pandemic on my podcast. I encourage you to look there for them, if you’re curious. What I can say today is that we are in this moment of pause—a moment we yogis have been practicing—and are working to implement that practice into real life. This is the moment for which we’ve been practicing. This, and many other traumatic moments we’ll endure in our lives. Finding steadiness and ease while we’re in the stress of it all. Touching the edge and choosing to stay and learn and develop resilience. And many of us do this together — practicing with one another in this intimate way of going to the deepest parts of ourselves while on the yoga mat and in the studio. This collective trauma we’re experiencing will show us if we’re willing to pause, breathe, observe, reflect, and be generous with our words, time, patience, and hearts while at the edge. This is that time in which we’ll see ourselves, and others will see us, too, for who we truly are and the work that we still need to do. And in that very vulnerable space, we have an opportunity to awaken our amorous and platonic relationships, our creativity, our dormant passions, and our spiritual selves. The opposite is also true, so we have a choice as to how we will use this time.
The words of Swami Kripalu come to mind:
It is proper to welcome struggle. Its arrival is always auspicious. Struggle changes a sub-human into an ideal person. It transforms an ordinary human into a spiritually-awake person respected by the world. Struggle is a subtle sculptor who shapes the life of every great spiritual master into a unique and unparalleled work of art.
I will not lie to you and say that I am interested in struggle. The last traumatic struggle I endured was moving beyond the death of my mother. I don’t embrace or welcome struggle — this is why I am not a swami. LOL. But, for those of us looking to step into the call of awakening, bettering oneself, shedding past insecurities, evolving, transcending, moving beyond fear… now is that time. We are in this struggle together—welcoming it or not. We are humanity. We are one. And we have the opportunity to choose how to use this time to awaken what was dormant in us so that we may move forward with more purpose and have our lives shaped into an unparalleled work of art.