Slowing
Down
Julie Russell
workshops
Play With
Your Words
Writing Workshop
Magic Money
in issue seven
Scintillations
Alice Springs
Putting Off Trust
She
What Do I Know
About Trust?
Growing Into My Own
Bits of Trust
Slowing Down
Death of a Season
Trust Me, I Was Told
Servicemen’s
Camaraderie
Moody Girl
On Faith
Letters To My
Younger Self
photography
Leaves
Anna Giabanidis
Lemon Chillin
Brian Mayden
Steering Wheel
Julie Russell
Cover Outtakes
Scott Carlisle
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Issue
Eight: Power
Issue Nine: Humor
Yoga,
for me, is all about sun salutations.
The stand-up, bend over, jump back, push up, way up,
butt back, jump forward, half up, back down, stand up, arms
up, arms down, pray - that make up a sun salutation.
The constant movement stretches my body and quiets my
brain. Yoga
quiets my brain only because it's too busy to make sure my
body is in the right place at the right time to think about
anything else. Sun
salutations are perfect for an overzealous busy person like
me.
So
imagine my chagrin when I show up at a new yoga class after a
two-month lapse and the instructor announces that there will
be no sun salutations today.
Evidently I missed the marathon class the previous week
when she had everyone do sixty-something sun salutations.
No, not today, today we're going to focus on going slow
and getting the poses right.
What? Why
would we want to do anything so calm?
If
I told you I'm never in a hurry, I'd be lying – bold-faced
lying. I am always in a hurry.
I am always busy.
I am busy being in a hurry to complete one thing,
something, anything, and then rapidly moving onto the next
thing. I've read
about enjoying the process, enjoying the ride, but frankly the
few times I've tried it, it just didn't work for me.
It fit like snowshoes when I was looking for in-line
skates. Taking the time to enjoy the process is just too slow for me.
To me, sun salutations are the perfect kind of yoga:
busy yoga. Plus
they are complete. I
know when you're done with one because you're standing up
again and ready to start another.
Yet I was standing, anticipating my beloved busy sun
salutations, and getting the message to slow down.
My
body had been giving me the same message for a few weeks.
I caught a nasty cold that lasted two weeks—not two
days, two weeks. My
body was telling me to slow down – watch a movie (I watched
10), read a book (I read until my eyes were tired), and take a
nap (impossible, waste of time). I wasn't even working. I
had just finished a contract project but it felt so
unproductive to do nothing after going-going-going working
long days and doing all my other projects (workshops,
magazine, breathing). I
know, it's no wonder I got sick.
So
I slowed down a bit. I
went to visit my Mom for a week where I didn't have to do
anything except eat what was put in front of me.
And then I realized, the more I slowed down, the better
I felt. I thought
I'd slowed down enough, but I showed up at yoga and got this
message again, like a construction guy holding a
"SLOW" sign in the middle of my path.
What's the hurry? Where ya goin' in such a rush?
What's another metaphorical trophy for finishing
another thing? Good
point. My life
was filled with the debris it took to get all the metaphorical
trophies I'd collected. I
was tired.
My
yoga teacher has me in a pose, some kind of triangle pose with
my foot touching the back wall.
My hand is touching the ground, but she wants me to put
a wood block between the floor and my hand.
My ego is screaming and she hears it.
"There's no trophy for putting your hand on the
ground instead of the block," she laughs at me.
The pose does feel better with the block, I feel
supported, but I don't admit that out loud.
Why
can't I slow down? What
is my hurry anyway? What
am I trying to outrun? Why
can't I slow down and be where I actually am, instead of
hurrying along to the next something.
I am learning to listen to people when they talk to me,
learning to pay attention to what people are saying and not
mentally skipping ahead to where I think I'll be next.
But it's hard. It's hard to be with someone with nothing else going on in my
head.
And
it's not normal for me. Even
when I meditate my brain is still partly engaged.
I have conversations with people in that space at rapid
sitcom speeds and try to resolve issues to make my life easier
in the physical world. If
I slowed down a bit, would all these issues still exist?
That's
just it. Slowing
down requires trust. It
requires that I stop doing and have faith.
I am so addicted to doing, pushing, being busy, and
even forcing things to happen the way I think is best, that I
never, seldom ever give any issues before me a chance to work
out on their own. I've
heard they do that if you trust.
"There's
no place to hide when you're going slow," my yoga teacher
interjects into my thoughts.
She's right. Hurry and busy are my drugs. The drugs I use to hide from feeling. The drugs I use to hide that I don't trust, have no faith, and carry lots of fear about the future. I wish I knew how to trust. I have heard to "let go and let God" for many years, but I've never heard anyone say how to do that. Maybe if I just stayed busy enough it would all work itself out.
But if being busy was working then I wouldn't have gotten sick. If busy was good for me, then I would be doing sun salutations in this yoga class instead of holding one triangle pose for five minutes with my hand supported by a block. Busy doesn't seem to be working for me anymore.
What,
I ask the part of me that craves being busy, are you hiding?
Fear.
Yes,
I see that.
Loneliness.
Yes,
I see that too. What's
the fear about?
Fear of pain. Fear of feeling everything that might come if I slow down. Fear that I will never stop crying if I start. Fear that everything I've kept bottled up for so long will violently erupt.
I'm
lying on the ground for the final pose - the corpse pose -
which is branded by most yoga teachers as the hardest pose of
all. Hardest,
they say, because the body is motionless, in a state of
non-busy, and the goal is to quiet the ever-busy mind.
For some reason, my busy mind is less busy than usual.
It's still busy, but at a less frantic pace.
I'm surprised that I'm not as physically worn out as I
usually am at the end of a "sun salutation
intensive" yoga class.
Perhaps
it is time to slow down and trust, after all, I've done
everything else.
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