" Stumbling On and off the Yoga Mat : WHY I YOGA"

“He is in the sanctuary and the stumbling stone” (Isaiah 8:14)

When people ask how long I’ve been practising yoga I like to respond with, “I’ve been a beginner for fifteen years.” I have practised very frequently if not always daily but still cannot tuck my shoulders under my knees while squatting like a frog and some days toppling tree is more often what results of my tree pose than rootedness. BUT - Whether standing like a mountain, aiming like a warrior or spreading into triangle, while engaged in any personal version of the yogic prescription, I have grown increasingly aware of my own energetic presence.

I have come to call this presence my “ Beloved Inner Guru”. This presence guides and heals, comforts and corrects my alignment through yoga poses and through daily life. So "What then?" I ask my B.I.G. self, if I could present myself like a yoga pro but fail repeatedly say, to be patient with my fellow man or my five year old? What of our inner attitudes which we often hide even from ourselves, but which inevitably create and colour our living postures off the mat as well?

Through sincere practice, I discover more often than not, that so called “failures” hold keys to personal transformation.

The fall out of hand stand can be the revelation, more so than getting it ‘right’: “Hey! I’m OK! I can survive a fall!” at one workshop, served me far more than the well intentioned, encouraging applause when I did manage to execute a more “successful” attempt. Through experiencing my limitations, I recognised my resistance was against the action of falling, the fear of getting hurt; and was not so much related to the actual posture. This insight empowered me to engage handstands again with open curiosity - if not full confidence.

With my next attempt, and in the presence of a safe teacher, as I opened to Grace, I ventured to stack my body onto my arms and hands. In moments I was crumpled on my mat in tears and the teacher was supporting my seeming failure: “You are a powerful woman. Right now you are not merely pointing to courage, you are being it.”

Something had gone righteously wrong! My “Beloved Inner Guru” had prepared the circumstances. Every preceding moment in life seemed to lead to this one in which pure Fear and Fear alone existed within me. By shifting my attention from the goal of standing on my hands to the feeling of Fear, I received an invaluable gift: a palpable awareness of a resident belief that I was powerless. This was not a psychological analysis through recounting traumatic personal stories, but an actual awakening, without words, of a Dead Zone, a Blind Spot. I could feel, smell, taste, and be in the lie so fully that it dissipated and I was transformed.

Through witnessing my inner body collapse helplessly I could observe that it followed logically: my physical body, unsupported, could only crumple in response. The grand gesture of a handstand was futile against that emotional wall of self alienation. I had had before a vague awareness of this block within me, but in that moment the impostor was fully detected, experienced and articulated specifically in the context of my own being. I could feel compassion for myself replace the old psuedo-belief and with it freedom; Freedom to fail; Freedom to fly. And that’s what I would call a “successful” handstand!

Without preference or prejudice, every feeling and failure is essential to experience, observe and investigate; and worth our efforts to do so sincerely. I am blessed to have a true Teacher who by example mostly and verbal instruction sometimes returns me faithfully to discover and consult my own inner authority; my own B.I.G. self. With the greatest ease she points me not to a rigourous asanas regimen or schedule, but to my own natural rhythm and inner enthusiasm: Let the mat invite you.

And on the mat I discover that the final pose of yogic postures may be sought after with the same automated, competitive bustle of vain accomplishment and fanaticism of pop-culture lifestyles. I also encounter the pride of perfection and fear of failure that avoids any risk taking; inner postures that can keep one in child’s pose for a very long time both literally and metaphorically. My B.I.G. self reveals time and again that it is not so much that I am for the yoga, a mannequin to strike perfect poses, but the yoga (which most simply put means union) - is for me.

Why I yoga, has to do with learning an intimate process of living fully, each present moment. Whether stumbling with alien inversions or waking up in the familiar habit of standing upright, I am finding my life off the mat shows up in the practice on the mat and vice versa. Each moment, without exception, has the potential to spark into consciousness a seemingly sudden mind-body awareness which is essential to my growth. Once earned, the benefits of this integration are never spent, lost, stolen, broken or revoked; they are unconditional. And it is this genuine attentiveness and joyful discipline that bears fruit in the experience of stumbling stone and the sanctuary, both on and off the mat.

END

“Living Metaphors: Stumbling On and off the Yoga Mat”
By: Joanne Gail Johnson
© Joanne Gail Johnson December 4, 2008
First Publication Rights: She Caribbean
Word count: 878