We are definitely in the dog days of summer here in California, especially here in the desert. Days are long and hot which means getting up at the crack of dawn to spend any cool time outside. However, we are lucky here in the Coachella Valley as hiking trails that lead to San Jacinto peak (11,000 ft) is just a 10 minute tram ride up the mountain. It can be a 30 degree difference from the desert floor to the mountain top tram station and is one of our getaways when the temperatures soar.
Last weekend, we headed up the tram for a long hike. I had set the intention of connecting to being in the mountains…feeling the breeze, touching the varied textures of the pine needles and enjoying supreme moments of quiet. On our way back to our starting point, I was gabbing away about something and tripped. Yep, that quick and unexpected moment of meeting the earth in a rapid fashion. In those moments, we stop and pause before getting up to see if anything is broken or injured. I paused, dusted the dirt from my leg, noticed my skinned knee and after taking a deep breath, continued on our way. What this moment of tripping taught me was to be more mindful. It was as if the earth was saying, “Hey lady! You’re not paying attention to me…wake up!”
And what was interesting was my reaction to the fall. Sometimes we just trip, physically and metaphorically. And when we do, what is our reaction? One of judgment and condemnation? Or do we brush ourselves off and keep going? My lesson of tripping brought me to my thought of the week which is, sometimes we fall and how we react is a reflection of our ability to be resilient.
Our practice of yoga is one way in which we build our resilience to the difficulties in life. When we are tripped up, it’s usually completely unexpected. We might have set a beautiful intention of moving in a particular direction or acting a certain way and then life puts her foot out and we stumble. Sally Kempton has written about Yoga and Resiliency and connects the ability to bounce back to the practices of kriya yoga, the yoga of transformative action. We can build our so-called resilient muscle by raising our level of consciousness with the practices of tapas, svadhyaya and ishvara pranidhana as guide posts.
In a nutshell, when we walk through the fire of transformation physically and metaphysically (tapas), create time to really get to know who we are through self-study (svadhyaya) and allow ourselves to surrender to the whole (ishvara pranidhana), we bounce back more easily from things that trip us up in life. When the challenges of life tap us on the shoulder, we can use the crisis as a catalyst for spiritual growth. As Sally Kempton’s teacher, Swami Muktananda once said, “a yogi is someone who can turn every circumstance to his advantage”. This definitely sounds like that not only are we able to build our resiliency muscle, but to flex it when needed.
Time to get on the mat…I know that life is going to happen and I’m likely to trip again in the future. I’m going to be ready for it no matter what comes along. How about you?
