The Great Way is not difficult
for those who have no preferences.
When love and hate are both absent
everything becomes clear and undisguised.
--Seng Ts'an
As you might have noticed, I took a bit of an extended break from blogging. I suppose you could say that I abandoned my blog. It wasn't exactly intentional; I've just been busy with other things as of late. Blogging is merely one of many things in my life that I've abandoned. Interesting that I should use the word abandoned, eh? It has such a negative connotation. Look it up in the dictionary and you'll find words like forsaken, deserted, utterly lacking in moral restraints, shameless. Hmmmm...sounds bad, doesn't it?
Not to worry, for you'll also find the word uninhibited. That's the more appropriate way to describe what I've been up to lately -- I've been uninhibited. In fact, I'd say that abandoning what matters has left me feeling free. It sounds odd, I know, but I can be a bit of an odd duck, so bear with me...
Some years ago, a dear friend of mine gave me a lovely picture featuring the quote above. Back then I had some fairly strong preferences which left me feeling a bit dissatisfied with my life. Granted, I've always been someone who would rather have a vague idea of how she wanted to feel rather than exactly what she wanted down to the last detail. For me, leaving things open allows for more possibility and it's been true for me my entire life -- typically, what happens to me turns out to be better than I could have imagined in the first place. That's why I usually stay away from overengineering my life.
I do the same in my yoga practice and my work with my clients. Rather than lead the client to where I think he/she needs to go, I give the client space to find his/her own way. It's not about me muscling the client into an experience but me giving the client space to have his/her own experience. It's one of the reasons I've stuck with my own home practice for years -- I enjoy having the space to let my practice evolve as it needs to rather than how someone else thinks it should.
This isn't for everyone, that's for sure. Lately I've gotten quite a few raised eyebrows regarding my life choices. These days I'm not as strongly attached to my preferences and my happiness is independent of my circumstances. The result of this is that I'm a happier, more peaceful person. Of course the flip side of this is that I get a lot of folks wondering why I "waffle" or am "unclear" about what I want or the dreaded, "How can you seem so calm when you don't have a plan?!"
This is usually where I smile serenely and tell these folks that I'm happy. You see, in the past few years I've abandoned all sorts of things/circumstances/people that I thought mattered to me. The nicer way to put this is that I've become much more uninhibited than I've ever been. What I've learned is that I didn't really need those things/circumstances/people -- I merely thought that I did. And when I let them go, some amazing possibilities swooped into the empty space.
I've also abandoned my yoga practice. I'm still practicing yoga -- I'm just not practicing it in the same way. Again, abandonment has lead to greater freedom and my practice is feeling deeper and more nourishing than ever these days.
No, I'm not abandoning this blog for good. I just like taking a break here and there (I'll definitely be taking some breaks during the holiday season) to allow for more possibility to rush in. I'm getting together my yearly holiday gift guide and thinking about topics for future posts. On a personal note, I'm making a lot of changes and discovering that I am much happier when I abandon my preferences. It's quite exciting, really. Some will call it waffling and fence sitting but I call it freedom.
In the spirit of freedom, I'd like to offer you a 60-minute yoga practice from the folks over at Yoga Today -- First Steps to Tranquility. This lovely practice is taught by my favorite Yoga Today teacher, Sarah Kline, and is free for the entire week. The theme of the class is freedom, which fits in perfectly with this post.
Namaste!
