Have you ever have one of those moments on your yoga mat when you just feel so darned good...your body opens, you feel firmly grounded in a posture, your alignment totally supports your body making you feel like you could stay in the pose forever (or at least longer than 5 breaths), you can't help but grin because you feel so joyful and full of happy energy? Oh yes, I've had many moments like that on my mat. And off my mat, for that matter.
A little over a year ago, I was having one of those moments. I had just made a big life change that felt so right that I awoke each morning feeling pinch-me-I-must-be-dreaming giddy (yeah, it was that good!). I was at beginnings of a relationship that seemed solid. I was feeling healthy and free and abundant. I was beginning to become aware of old habits and patterns and committed to new ways of being. I was metaphorically in Warrior Pose, feeling powerful and open and strong. I was creating a life that I adored. At the time I felt like I had hit the sweetest of sweet spots, like it couldn't possibly get any better.
The thing about moments is that they pass. And when we're having a good moment, we want to cling to it, to make it last beyond the moment. That's where the ouch comes in. It's like staying in a yoga pose too long or going to deep -- it feels good for a minute and then it doesn't. For every pose there is a counterpose which takes the body in the other direction to balance it out.
About a month of so after that moment I found myself still clinging to it even though it had passed. It no longer felt good or right or organic. Instead it felt forced and very, very wrong. Just like the counterpose, the next moment stretched me in a different direction. At the time it didn't feel all that great. But when I finally let go of that past moment and immersed myself into the present moment, things shifted. I went into the stretch, quieting my resistance, instead focusing on moving in a new direction.
It feels like a lifetime of moments have passed since that time. The moment I find myself in now is richer, more joyful, more resonate with my soul. I could never have conceived of this moment when I was so wrapped up in that moment of seeming perfection. It reminds me of something a friend of mine said once (wise words passed down from her father): Life is like a spiral. You come around and view things full circle but from a higher elevation. I couldn't have said it better myself. In this moment I still find myself in that pinch-me-I-must-be-dreaming giddy state but it has that higher elevation feeling about it. How could I have possibly thought that that moment over a year ago was the sweetest of all sweet spots?!?!?!
This moment isn't all that different in terms of the contentment and happiness that I feel and yet it is. It feels like so much more. It's like I've come into Wheel pose once again but this time my body is opened even more than it was last time and the energy is infusing my whole body. Oh yes, higher elevation it is.
Yet I know that there's a counterpose and that at some point in the near future I'll think of this post and shake my head thinking that the moment I'm in is even richer and brighter and more powerful than this one. Just when you think you've hit that sweet spot, it gets sweeter. Not clinging to the sweetness of the moment opens you for even more sweetness in moments to follow. All you can do is be in this moment, regardless of whether it's bringing you sweetness or an uncomfortable stretch or even numbness.
These days I'm grateful for all of my moments, for they add up to a merry adventure of a life. And in appreciating what the present moment has to offer, I find my life getting sweeter and sweeter. Here's to the spiral and coming back to higher elevations!
Namaste!