I'm reading Brave Enough by Cheryl Strayed. She opens her little book by acknowledging her love of quotes and the impact the quotes she's collected over the years have had on her life. I feel this. I understand what she means.
Years ago, I read the quote: "Life is not about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself." George Bernard Shaw's words have stuck with me after all this time, and I find myself reapeating them to myself sometimes, almost like a mantra.
Every moment of my life - every moment of your life - has been an opportunity to choose: chocolate or vanilla, stay or go, speak or remain silent, do or don't. At fifteen, I had a very small - seemingly insignificant - yet life-changing experience when I was learning to walk the tightrope. I've talked about this moment numerous times, so I won't go into the details here, but that one simple choice - to move forward when I could have happily remained still, standing frozen in place on that tightrope - has since determined the course of my entire life.
In that one, tiny moment - a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of my life - I chose to keep going, to try, even in the face of failure. I have made the same decision for myself, over and over, every time I've been presented with this choice ever since. I call this decision a lot of things: persistence, resilience, continuation, courage. I am always choosing to be Brave Enough. And I am very proud of this.
Something I've been thinking about today: perhaps I also have a tendency to reach too far. Let me explain.
There is the bravery of continuation and persistence... There is also the bravery of surrender. Of letting it go. Of letting it be.
Sometimes, I feel relaxing into existence takes much more courage than forcing myself forward. In yoga, we call this Self-Surrender Ishvara Pranidhana. Ishvara Pranidhana is the surrender of the ego - the release of our notions of who we're supposed to be - into who we already are, who always have been. It is a return to our most essential self. This is not someone we can find, not someone we can create - this is someone who has always existed within us.
In the words of Guru Patik, "Life is messy." It is very easy to become distracted by all of the obstacles that fall into our path. And it is very easy to lose our Self as we continually attempt to make our way around these obstacles. When we allow too many of these obstacles to clutter our path, we find our way forward blocked, and this is the moment we may either choose to force our way onward or surrender into the confusion, breathe, and work past these obstacles, one at a time.
See, I believe there's a difference between being brave enough to take a first step and being too stubborn to recognize when we've simply taken too many. It's not brave to push past the things that need addressing. In fact, this is very much the opposite of brave. It takes courage to recognize when we need to slow down, even stop sometimes - to "stop and smell the roses."
Why plant a garden if you take no pride in the beauty of your work before the harvest?
At the end of our yoga practice, we enter savasana, or corpse pose, as a means to bring us into this space of ishvara pranidhana: this space of full surrender. When I first started practicing yoga, I would fall asleep in savasana all the time. If you think about it, savasana is so relaxing, it's sometimes - if not often - difficult not to fall asleep. And this is what we often associate savasana with: relaxation and sleep. This notion is quite amusing, because, when we come to fully understand practiced surrender, we understand that, in entering this space of peace in savasana, we are, in fact, not falling asleep at all - we are waking up. We are letting go of everything outside of our Self, we are allowing our ego to slip away, and we are approaching our most raw and essential nature.
Aparigraha: non-grasping. This too is very much related to our practiced surrender. In practicing aparigraha, or non-grasping, we learn to let go of expectation, and we allow what is to be and what will be to become.
I have been falling asleep in savasana. I have been reaping what I have sewn without appreciating my reward. I have been grasping at straws, trying to build a strong foundation for my house; but we all know too well, a home built from straw is easily blown over. It takes time, effort, and patience to pour a solid foundation... So pour a solid foundation, I will. It's time I reawaken and remember, my life has always flowed beautifully when I've allowed it to. Now is the time to practice ishvara pranidhana, to fully surrender. I have shot plenty of arrows at the moon. Let's see which of them land in the stars.
I have practiced yoga for nine years this year, I have studied Pantanjali's Eight-Limbed Path of yoga for five years, and I am always surprised at how the learning never ceases. Just when I begin to think I understand, a whole new perspective on an old lesson unfolds. I am grateful for my ability to continue to learn.
What I have learned today: It is good to shoot for the moon. This gives you the opportunity to land in the stars. However, it is futile to worry about how far your arrow might fly. Keep reaching, and, eventually, you will find you are precisely where you need to be.