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Thursday, April 09, 2009
Got Something Stuck in Your Molar?
People use yoga for many different reasons-time to stretch, time to sweat, time to prepare the mind to quiet down, just to name a few, and for each person it is unique.
One of the reasons that I like and promote yoga is because it gives us time entirely for ourselves. Typically, the room is quiet, and we are encouraged to stop both the internal and external chatter. We don't usually have conversations throughout our practice with our neighbor, and we are encouraged to forget about what type of yoga clothing she or he is sporting that day. I love that part. It's time to focus purely on me, and what I feel I need today. Yahoo! How often does that happen?
Over the last few yoga classes, I have had this imagery come into my mind of a dentist picking at something between two of my molars. As I focused on myself, trying to forget about everyday items like to-do lists, decisions to be made, things that I 'should' do, I imagined the dentist picking away at each part of my physical life. With each click of that sharp tool, he gets out the "stuff" that distracts me from my true self. With each breath, and with each exhalation, I am becoming calmer and more confident about who I truly am.
Some picks with the sharp tool are easy - like the fact that I am maybe getting a little bit hungry, distracted by what I want to eat after class. Put that away for the time being. But, the dentist is still working on getting some particles out. The biggest one is that Ego. Phew! That "stuff" can often go very deep.
As Eddie Ellner, the owner and founder of YogaSoup in Santa Barbara, CA, put it recently:
"When the 'I' disappears, when who you believe yourself to be vanishes, then all the dramas that support and bodyguard that identity also disappear. What remains is the simple and obvious joy of who you are. You are not anything that can be described. You just are."
It is with these thoughts that I breathe deep, and encourage that dentist to pick at each of the items that I have chewed along the way- multiple stories that we tell ourselves, and dramas that we adopt as our own.
Eddie describes the Ego thus:
"...harsh judgments... ego's attempts to remain in charge, to keep out the recognition of this light. But why? Why would you want to keep something this wonderful at bay? Good question.
Because with the light, with the truth, comes the end of the story the ego loves to tell about itself, its plight, its life.
I recognized at once all the mean and petty ways that Ego tries to remain separate by judging, diminishing, elevating, resisting, accusing, needing, fearing ... all the ways ego attempts to stay in control, to not lose face ... never realizing the face it has to lose isn't real to begin with.
Absurd, right? Don't blame ego, that's just the way it's built."
That is why we need regular dental check-ups, also known as yoga, and some time for ourselves on the mat. In yoga, we are able to get rid of some of the noise of the outside world, and focus on that wonderful, true self. It is with these thoughts that I look forward to my next time on the mat, and having a chance to chip away some more of that "stuff" stuck in my molars.
Posted by Ingrid on 04/09 at 01:25 PM
(0) Comments •
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