It seems to have been a week filled with “bad” news. The huge enviromental impact of the oil spill, unexpected deaths of friends of friends, plane crashes, poor financial markets and blah, blah, blah. We are bombarded with this through our media sources and conversations continually. The bad news is always in the news. But at times it seems as though the volume has been turned up inside of my own head and awareness around the bad news. For whatever reason it seems to be more personal this week.
Being surrounded by so many challenges, how do I find that place of equanimity and balance? How do I remember all of the good news?
In our practice of yoga, we seek to find balance. A union of energy between our bodies, minds and spirits. When we are in a half moon balance (as pictured above) we strive to extend away from our middle, reaching through our limbs and crown of the head as we stay firmly planted on our standing leg. This pose is an illustration of my thought for the week.
If we focus on the extremes, in this case our extremities, and direct our energy away from the center, we topple. We lose balance. We disconnect from our center. But, if we build our pose from the ground up, from our foundation of support on the standing leg and reach out into the extremes, keeping our breath and eyes steady and focused, we are able to stay on balance.
Life is like this. If we put our energy into the extreme emotions and thoughts of good or bad, we can dwell in places that seem to be dark and hopeless. But, if we build a basic foundation of ritual and practices that maintain the essence of who we are and seek to be, we can begin to accept both ends of the spectrum as being an inherent part of living. Good and bad things happen. As aware individuals we have the power and choice to create our reaction to them.
Knowing this and having heard bad news this week, I come back to my yoga and meditation in order to find my balance. To find gratitude and in doing so I find my center.
What do you do as a practice to bring yourself back into the middle? What is your foundation built on?
