Practicing an Attitude Towards Balance

by on April 30, 2014 · 0 comments

in Thoughts on Philosophy

Equinimity So I really haven’t been writing that much lately. Not as much as I used to anyway. My words are less ‘flowey’ lately, and have taken on a more technical tone because my job as an IT consultant. My career life has been creeping into my yoga life more and more. For a long time, it was yoga that seemed to be encroaching onto the nine-to-five boundaries. For me to get back into the mode of writing, sometimes I just have to type at the speed of thought and not correct my wording or mistakes. The process of externalizing thoughts onto a keyboard reminds me what it’s like to write without being so self-analytical as I would be in a typical work email. It also makes me realize how I used to do so much of this kind of writing as well.

The intention for this post was to share how the role of teacher a few days a week made my practice took on a different role. In addition to that change, my job naturally evolved into a position in where I had to ‘step up’ as some like to put it. So, I have that too. But the trick, I thought, was to balance all these roles in my life. I hear that phrase often in yoga circles. I thought that I was doing a good job balancing, but the epiphany is that yoga weighs more per concerted effort, than the unimportant stuff, like jobs and sleep and macaroni. I found that even the desire for more attention to yoga brought out a ‘weightiness’ in my being. If I don’t have the availability practice making Utkatasana a resting pose, then what can I do ‘right now’ to practice? For a while, reading an article here or there or picking up my favorite yoga manual was great to get my yoga fix, but then I realized that I wanted to actually practice all the new things I would discover, then I would want to teach them once experienced, so then I would have to practice them even MORE. What a dynamic! Reading doesn’t do much for balancing my needed exposure to all-things yoga. Jappa, yes. In the car actually. Many of my clients are a commute for me, So, in the car with the chanting, yes. I have many hours of experience now. I’ll spare you the boring details of a Vipassana practice, and how Sattvic eating will put you on a completely other plane of vibratory sensation. (Albeit these can be very transformational practices.)

b2We can fast forward to the day where I found error in the logic of practice. That one day that changed my home practice, which at some points is the only thing that keeps me from hulk-smashing the shit out of everything I own. My serene home practice that must be completed on a semi-regular practice so I don’t feel guilt when I remember that I actually TEACH yoga. I had my cell phone by my mat for the first time during a home practice. I was not proud of myself, but it was what ‘needed to be done’. The whole session was completed with only four interruptions. A 60 minute YogaGlo session stretched into 2 hours between stopping to fix pbj sandwiches on demand and helping the neighbor unload his new bike. Once I made it through interruption number three  (dealing with my son’s broken eye-glasses), I was well on my way to Savasana. Or so I thought. Apparently dachshunds have a nose for Savasana and a tongue to the ear is like the wiener-dog handshake. Just when I think I had balance figured out, I really only know the meaning of the word, yet I toss the word around casually to bewildered peers or suffering loved ones. I like to think that it is the attitude towards balance, or equanimity that is a better approach. Balance is something we desire, or strive for. And like many desires, it can bring us suffering if the intention to have it brings us out of our awareness of the present moment.  I would also like to think that one is moving from a place of embodiment when its determined balance is needed. Even with a family,  a career, two stupid dogs, the kid’s activities, a yoga practice, and a second job as a yoga teacher, I’m also enrolled in my second teacher training. As if that’s not enough of a juggling act, I am in the beginning stages of building (by my own hands) a vacation home on my family’s ranch. From an external perspective, my life is way out of balance. But I think that’s ok. As long as we embrace embodiment of this existence in an ever changing world, within an infinitely expanding universe, it helps greatly to be poised in our attitude towards life to reap the rewards of an attitude towards balance.

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