Pauses

pauses

Remember: The first part of the posture that you are actively, willfully performing releases the blocked energies and the second part that follows is entry into a state of non-doing where you are just simply allowing undivided attention to be totally engaged in receiving the full impact of the released energy as it is felt in the form of sensation.

~ Yogi Amrit Desai

Yesterday I was on the second phone call for Heather Plett’s Lead With Your Paint Clothes On learning circle and towards the end we discussed the importance of pauses in creativity and work.

Last night I had dinner with an old friend and we too discussed the importance of pauses not just in creativity and work–but in existence…in life.

In one of the fabulous books I’ve been devouring for my Yoga Teacher Training, the author Yogi Amrit Desai discusses how very important the pause between Yoga postures is in purifying the body, spirit, and mind.

I am currently pausing from my writing. Not because I’m burned out, tired, uninspired, or any other somethin somethin you might think of. I’m pausing because I feel deep down that I need to. That a rest and welcomed stillness could do me some good.

This is not an easy pill to swallow. I don’t know how much my “commitment” to keep blogging on Fridays for my Yoga journey is really sticking to my “commitment” or simply staying addicted to actually feeling I need to keep doing something. The second there is a pause–a break–an empty space I quickly scatter my energy to find something to fill it up with. I swap one “to-do” for another without even being fully aware of it sometimes.

Then, this week, as I practiced Yoga on my thick rubber mat in my studio–I moved myself through a softer, more grounded, sweeter, restorative Yoga practice. Poses where I barely left the comfort of the floor. A practice that never elevated my pulse. A sequencing of postures that moved slow, precisely, and were jammed packed full of pauses.

Pauses. Little places to expand with breath–to lean into–to watch the freight train of the mind and to become even more deeply aware of the sensations that exist and occur in the body.

And what I found from this shift in practice this week is that I shifted as well. I softened. I loosened my grips on pressuring myself to work harder, to be more, to produce produce produce all the time. I grew comfortable with the pauses on my mat and started to grow comfortable with my decision to pause in my creative/work life as well.

The truth that appears in these pauses lies in a question I keep asking myself–

and that is what am I running to or running from–

that I constantly ignore and push past the pauses

to get to some imagined destination?

I can never escape being right here, right now-

no matter how hard I work or try.

Stepping into the pauses reminds me just how beautifully alive I really am.

Embracing the pauses is opening my heart to even more possibilities-

To a deeper understanding that sometimes I make it even harder for myself

To navigate this one Creative Juicy Life.

That oh, by doing so much less-

I am, at my essence, doing so much more.

My Yoga Journey :: Week #17

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