Lean In

Finishing up my personal practice today, I sat in a seated forward fold with my legs crossed and my body bent over my legs.  Though this is a simple pose, I noticed extreme discomfort in my IT band and gluteus medius muscles.  I immediately moved up and adjusted my body to ease the discomfort, yet when I settled back into the pose the muscles still felt uber tight.  I thought first to readjust, but then stopped myself and remembered that if it's not a torqued pain, BREATHE into it.  Rather than move away from it, I settled INTO the discomfort and breathed.  I focused all of my thoughts on my breath, envisioning the breath moving directly to ease the pain in my side.  I stayed in the pose and let the breath wash over the tightness.  The trick to meeting my edge was not to move away from it (because then I never could stretch it enough to settle into it and transform it), but to lean into it with the support of my breath, thus giving it just the stretch it needed to loosen up.

So it goes with life.  Often when pain and discomfort roll onto our path, we immediately react by jumping away from it so as to avoid any discomfort.  We hurl ourselves in the opposite direction to not come close to feeling any pain.  As in yoga, so in life, when we lean into our pain and discomfort, breathing to keep us calm rather than trying to move away from it, we are better able to accept and deal with (thus transforming) the discomfort.  Pain is not something we are immune to, nor can we avoid it, whether it's physical, emotional, mental, or social ... discomfort is part of the package of life.  It becomes easier to sit with when we do just that: sit with it and not run from it.  When we run, it doesn't take away the pain.  It simply prolongs the process.  So take deep breaths and lean in.  All will be well ... eventually.

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