It was the best of times it was the worst of times (Charles Dickens)
How is it that we can have the best days and the worst days in one week. Even more emotionally exhausting, a supreme day and a bad day in one day? It’s happened to all of us. Joy, followed by pain, hopefulness followed by let downs, health followed by sickness. How can we be privileged to feel safe meanwhile our sisters and brothers here in our own country and in war-torn lands suffer endlessly? Life's journey is like this, for all of us, and Yoga was conceived as a GPS through it all.
Assuredly, suffering and joy can exist alongside each other, though not exactly at the exact same time. Making it make sense, we look to Yoga's ancient wisdom to hold space for it all without getting tangled in either. We certainly cannot be in suffering and in Yoga at the same time; however, once we know we have a choice, the interventions are meant to add doses of appropriate, medicinal tools to pacify and transform us. Each practice leaves us with something new, a feeling, a pattern, a thought, an opening that can stay with us as we live our lives.
Then, when we are having the best day and we get that phone call, we can feel fortified by our Yoga-cured samskara-s, nourished by the joy or love or fun and not lose ALL of it in an instant when days take turns. When we feel down, we can find the will to talk to a friend, go on the walk, drive to see the sunset, chant the chant. When we have had an up and a down, we can take care to unwind and heal, on that day itself. Resilience is a samskara, one which needs daily nudging to keep up in the magic and mayhem of our lives.
Yoga’s time-tested tips can segue us into a meaningful and manageable life, today, this week, this month this season, and throughout all seasons.
Inhale and Exhale. Resilience requires flexibility. When we become frozen with fear, shock or dismay, we have the breath to move it. Inhaling, take in love, strength, courage, energy. Exhaling, release doubt, desire, identifications and fear.
Prevent using stimulants and depressants. Your highs will be very high. Your lows, very low. This cycle of leaning on substances to ease mental and emotional stress backfires everytime. The middle ground itself, the healthy place, becomes ever more so uncomfortable to inhabit. Instead of going here to process, we self medicate, and all of life outside the buzz becomes perpetual overwhelm.
Stay for a moderate amount of time in your āsana-s (too long is not recommended, for example timing yourself with a clock - the mind can drift off, the joints accrue strain). Unless you are down, then move. From the perspective of the guṇa-s, practice must regulate us. Meet anxiety where it is. It moves, like the wind. Meet restlessness where it is, and hold its hand, walking it back to the curb.
Having these tools in your experiential repertoire refines the ever taxed mind to be able to meet life’s occurrences with clarity and faith. When magic turns to mayhem, you have you. In the midst of mayhem, magic will be available.