the movement
honor ancestors, serve descendants, nourish all
Photo: a beach in Raja Ampat.
Photo credit: John Connell our friend and fellow sea life enthusiast
What is your regular routine?
I will be on a six-week sabbatical from May 27 – July 5. We resume all in-person and live online sessions the week starting July 8! The next newsletter from me will come in the later part of July.
What is your regular routine?
I know myself well enough to know I thrive on a regular routine. Getting to teach group classes and train individual clients every week is pure joy for me. The predictability of daily household chores resonates like a comforting bass beat to my life. Even my school assignments and exams have started to become familiar terrain to tread. Don’t get me wrong. It is definitely an uphill climb, but 18 months into my studies at Vivekananda Yoga University, I’m growing accustomed to the gradient!
While I revel in routine, I’m going to shake it up with a six-week break to travel to Asia. I’ll disconnect from my norm, to connect with whatever is on the other side world. I know I’ll get to hug friends along our route from D.C. to Indonesia. I’ll get to commune with coral reefs in Raja Ampat, reunite with extended family in Bali, and bask in extra-special time with my mama in my hometown of Hong Kong!
I’m well aware no matter how much preparation I put in, there will be plenty that I cannot control or know. I’ll have to rely on what is within me, to navigate what is around me.
What is within?
Our mind can be tricky travel companion. Here is an example of the difference between my mind and my hubby’s mind. When we decided we could get to Raja Ampat, Indonesia, and snorkel/scuba in the protected, most diverse underwater realm on the planet, my hubby’s first thought was of the millions of fish we would swim with. My first thought was, “Will I be able to pull myself out of the water and back on to the boat?” In that moment I could actually feel my breath get shallow and my throat squeeze tight in the fear of the thought “What if I can’t do it?” Thankful for my years of training and practice, I consciously knew to take steady, slow breaths. After a few respirations, my mind’s fierce grip on the “I can’t,” started to ease, allowing me space; space to think calmly and space to breathe. Our mind is useful in many ways, yet thankfully our breath can help us when our mind starts to spin out around one limiting thought.
Photo: Multicolor coral in Raja Ampat, photo courtesy of John Connell.
What is outside your comfort zone?
The roots of yoga (philosophical teachings) ask us to look at what we “like” and “dislike” and analyze what is underneath any surface level reaction. As we do the analysis, we discover that our attachments (desire) and aversions (distaste) are based on whether we are in or out of our own comfort zone. The regular routine of my life is 100% inside my comfort zone but the prospect of long-haul travel, though exciting, is well outside of my comfort zone.
Yoga invites us to practice being and breathing in situations that are outside of our comfort zone. We can do this incrementally. We can grow little by little. Gradually over time we can expand our mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical comfort zone.
For example, I still find sitting still for mediation to be extremely challenging. I have slowly cultivated the capacity to breathe in seated stillness over time. I started with one minute, then tried two, got ahead of myself and jumped to five, then had to yield back to four… It’s piece by piece, part by part, and it requires persistence and patience.
We can grow little by little.
In preparation for the honor and joy to commune with sea creatures in Raja Ampat, I’m training myself to be at ease when the going might not be so easy. At the moment my training includes swimming to the deep end of the pool and then hoisting myself out onto the deck. Next, I drop back in to repeat the process. I do it as many times as I can. As I get more tired, climbing out of the pool, definitely begins to push me outside my comfort zone. Every time I climb out it feels a little different.
The roots of yoga remind us that when the going gets tough we can lean on our inner resources. Yoga, from the root word “Yuj,” means “to unite.” It happens when we choose to stay with what challenges us and we breathe. We breathe to make space within ourselves even in discomfort. When we breathe slow and steady while in uncomfortable situations, we make space within our mind and hearts. Possibility and potential can only exist where there is space. When we proactively disconnect from the grip of fear, we choose to connect with the infinite fields of possibility. In doing so we make space to find a way, our way. Trust me when I tell you that the belly flop on to the pool deck is not pretty, but it is a way. I am eternally grateful for the space to find a way.
The invitation is to breathe as you explore outside your comfort zone,
Move in unfamiliar ways. Join our classes!
Dance to new kinds of music.
Taste a bite of fruit you’ve never heard of before.
Read a book from an author you don’t know.
Walk home along an unusual route, you get the idea.
However, you explore, go with your steady spacious breath. Everything we need for the journey is already within.
April 2024
