The blog has been quiet again! That is what happens to the blogging life when the demands of grad school loom large in the form of two giant research papers. Fifty-odd pages later, I can come up for some air … and take final exams. Then start all over with two more classes promptly starting, two days after these classes end … keep breathing!
Oh, and add yoga teacher training classes into that mix: intense, full weekends once a month, and two of them close together, right in the midst of the rush of the research papers and the exams! Just keep breathing, yes …
Well, this is the life and the workload I chose, and so I am not complaining! I am still learning how to breathe mindfully through it all, however. Still learning how to ‘rest in the posture,’ as it were.
Resting in the posture is something I’ve learned from yoga, a way to sustain, settle, stay in strength, to find strength to stay in a challenging posture. (To give credit where credit must be given, I learned the phrase ‘rest in the posture’ from a lovely book called Meditations from the Mat, by Rolf Gates. )
In yoga, to rest in the posture is to be able to stay in the pose, deepen into it, even to surrender into it, when the temptation is to bail out of it instead.
But to be able to stay in it, to find strength, means first pausing, stepping back out of the pose a bit, adjusting, and then moving back into it again. It means letting go of tension, letting a softness and lightness flow through bones and muscles and mind instead, surrendering stubbornness and surrendering into the struggle, into the challenge, into the pose in the moment.
Challenging, difficult poses or postures aren’t just found in yoga, though! They’re found everywhere, in parenting, in marriage and friendships, in the workplace, in going back to school, in taking on a new adventure, in suffering the loss of a loved one, or even in the most ordinary-seeming everyday days … and in a sense, the posture never ends. It changes, but flows on, like a river to the sea …
Learning to rest in the posture then, in some way or another, seems essential to having the strength to sustain the posture, to handle whatever the challenge is, to embrace the struggle or the suffering. To sustain and be sustained, to embrace and be embraced through it.
So, sometimes I am struggling in a pose, or struggling in a yoga class, and I remember, ‘rest in the posture,’ and I feel something in me, in my body and in my heart, shift and melt … and I realize, the strength and will and joy to endure are there!
And other times, like when I felt overwhelmed with life happening all at once, research papers, yoga class homework, kids out of school for the summer … I think, wow, how can I manage all of this?! And I remember, ‘rest in the posture.’ And something in me shifts, settles into acceptance, and vital grace is there again.
Let go of tensions, let go of resistance to the challenge, struggle, or suffering, let go of what is not needful or helpful. Pause, rest, surrender, re-adjust, find the grace and joy and strength of this moment! And be amazed at how much grace and joy and strength there is in you, to tap into when you rest in the posture. And be in awe at what postures (of life) you can rest in and how much rest you can find there.
In writing this, I realized that this phrase ‘rest in the posture,’ is so much like a phrase I used in an earlier post, ‘take refuge in surrender.’ They really are so much alike, but yet different, perhaps, too. Instead of me explaining what I think that means, I think I’ll leave space for you to decide whatever the meaning is for you!
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And, related to the idea of the posture never ending, but shifting into new forms, and finding grace to rest in the new posture …
I find myself moved to do something that is like shifting into a new posture, something that seems scary to me, because it’s perhaps making myself vulnerable in a way I haven’t before, opening up my heart-space, my soul, to you all in a different way …
And that is to share on this blog, in a section of its own that I will set up soon, a statement of faith/spirituality that I wrote after a dear friend said to me, you should write a statement of faith; I would love to read it!
Sharing it feels sort of like a posture that I might rather avoid because of fear I’ll fall out of it or embarrass myself, but something says to me, just take refuge in surrender and rest in this posture, too. And who knows what grace will come from it!
So, check back soon! 🙂
