A Pathway to Peace
This is a beautiful time of year for looking inward. Without much on the calendar in terms of holidays or summer fun, we have the time to cultivate stillness and reflection. It can be hard to look at yourself, to look right at what's bothering you, whether it's uncomfortable feelings or a fuller comprehension of who you are. I lived with chronic pain for decades. There were times when distraction was my friend. But I couldn't live in distraction. There had to be times to be still and look at the problem of pain and the other problems of my life (because they made the pain worse). Awareness of what's inside you is a pathway to a release of the tension and internal fighting, to an understanding and acceptance, to peace.
Without being able to look at pain and problems, we can't understand them. Without understanding them, we can't accept them. Without understanding and acceptance, joy becomes difficult to access. One of my favorite teachers says that the purpose of yoga is joy. The idea that there could be more joy in my life is what drew me to deepen my practice and do my first teacher training. What I didn't realize at the time was that yoga would get me to witness all emotions - among them sadness, despair, anger, impatience, happiness and love. It was only through watching these emotions straight on that I found some peace. Only in stillness can we witness the rushing in of the tsunami of emotions. Any movement would distract us. So we sit or lay still and watch.
We long for peace. Sometimes our trouble with stillness is not being able to live in the moment; sometimes it's that we're trying to get away from our thoughts. But without looking at our thoughts, how can we understand them? If we don't understand why we have them, how can we accept them and let them go by? How can we get un-stuck from them? The stilling practices within yoga - restorative poses including Savasana, meditation, yoga nidra and the like - are a way to practice being still. They're a way to practice being in the moment. Being still while looking inward is no easy task. But gems aren't found easily.