February 2012: Resting Into What Is
02.01.2012 | 0 comments

We spend a tremendous amount of time in our culture labeling things – not only in the most obvious places, like product and business marketing, but also in our own lives: this is Good, this is Bad, this is Unwelcome, this is What I Wanted. Though I am a great advocate of using language to help us better understand ourselves and how we relate to others and the world, I believe that language must be balanced with non-language experience. Allowing our experience of things also be our guide as we create a living, breathing dialogue between the mind and the body.

Hence the idea of What Is. By removing the urge to label something, we give space for that experience to be felt fully and authentically for all that it is.

If I put a label on something – saying that it is Bad, for example – I leave little room for another reality to present itself. For, in fact, that Bad thing might simply be a stepping stone to the most expansive, joyful experience I could imagine. Much like the passing of a loved one might open you to have a more contemplative, less fear-based relationship to death. Or being laid off from your job could lead you to starting your own successful and fulfilling business. Not that we overlook the emotion of these initial moments – the grief, the anger, the sadness. Rather, we allow those emotions to come fully online and for the possibility that something else is afoot.

And so we seek the balance. Allowing the mind to witness the stories that make up our daily lives, while letting go of the need to stifle their wisdom with singular, limiting designations. Instead, inviting ourselves to feel every single aspect of the story, curious about and open to its unfolding.

Which then brings us to the idea of Resting Into. If we are constantly leaning forward, expecting, trying to make something happen, we are cultivating the ground for potential exhaustion and disappointment. It’s akin to sitting on the edge of your seat in a movie. At the end, you probably feel the uncomfortable tension in your back from that on-the-edge experience.

So instead, what if we do our best to rest back – literally, into the back of the body – and experience things as they arrive, rather than maintaining a constant at-the-ready stance? Otherwise, we contribute to a sustained fight or flight response in the body, which is ultimately an erosive state of being.

This doesn’t mean that we always wait for things to come to us, never taking action or stepping in with conviction. It means that we carry ourselves with a sense of equanimity and calm, even when we are actively participating in our lives. What results is a healthy sense of detachment from outcome and an ability to fully and completely experience life as it unfolds.

In our local BodyMantra movement classes, we will practice and practice again this very thing during the month of February: Cultivating the patience and curiosity that invite a full experience of each moment. Doing our best to release judgement and commentary, opening to unexpected outcome and expansive experience that we might otherwise miss.

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