Resting from the Gaze

I've been working so hard to soften my practice for the last few months. I have neglected to realize that softening is a bit about working less hard, and about resting from the gaze of focus.

Frankly, whether you're mindfully trying to soften or not, it's not necessary to work SO hard. But it's hard not to, isn't it? Years of associating success, strength, and ability with hard work that hurts have persuaded me to think that progressing in practice means exertion beyond what is reasonably challenging (a nebulous qualifier there). "Trying" to soften, likewise, has been constrained by the same ideal. I picture a small child squeezing her eyes tightly together — it doesn't make a ton of difference to the darkness you see, and it gathers a whole lot more tension in the face.

I'm have been a squeezer: squeezing into my day all that I can fit into it, squeezing the energy I have left before I MUST stop to have a meal, squeezing my patience before speaking up, squeezing myself into a bound pose. If you're not careful, you can squeeze yourself into a small space where there's not much room for anything that doesn't quite fit. That's not Yoga, and that's not the expansion of the mind, the dissolution of the ego, the liberation of the body that we're trying to work through/toward. It's not fun, or freeing, or loving, or sustainable.

It took a conscious week away from practice to show me what I was missing. A few weeks ago while vacationing in Maine, I took a whole week away from my Ashtanga practice and did restorative yoga. Using props, I incorporated Yin Yoga into a dreamy, soothing morning practice that involved sitting in poses like Virasana and Padmasana for minutes at a time. Aside from the high that came with this practice — a long, liquid flowing sense of calm — there was an opening in the joints, in the muscles, and in the heart. Wrapped up in this practice was a kindness to the self and the body that created a kind of floating, and it was invaluable in negotiating the complexities of visiting with family, long car rides with a wee child who doesn't like them, an ego that tried to berate me for taking some time away.

When I returned to practice the following week, I saw even more profoundly the impact of this sojourn. Indeed, some of the poses were more challenging than before (drop-backs, for instance) because I had been doing the passive practice of restoration; but other poses were significantly more open to breath (bound poses, deep hip openers). And, surprisingly, even after a week away, I was able to jump up into handstand on the first day back. More softly.

But even more significant was the spirit of practice that began to bloom after this week away. I was more comfortably interested in the taste of food, smells, the feel of my bed. The hardness of the body had begun to soften, returning subtle curves to a form that had squeezed away the baby weight and then some. And, more generally, practice has taken on a larger omnipresence — where before it seemed like a fixed object in a sea it now feels like the sea itself. A vast change in a small amount of time, but this is what a shift in perspective can do.

Focusing on the goal can sometimes slow the process of achieving it. Turn away, rest the gaze, take a breath, soothe the mind, and then look back — see what you see, then.