The “thing” isn’t the thing
There was a time when I woke up every day with a racing heart and sweaty palms. EVERY DAY. For years. And, as so many of us do, I pushed through it. I got up, ran with my dog, took the metro into work, changed jobs, changed jobs again, started practicing yoga, moved to different states.
I kept treating the symptoms, worked on my coping skills, tried to better manage my time, get enough exercise and so on and so forth. Nothing worked. Why? Because I was working on purely the physical level, denying other parts that needed attention. I was blindly following the advice of others without discernment and without the ability to look within.
One day…it clicked. I wasn’t living in alignment with my heart. And, I felt trapped. What I longed for was to feel free.
All the coping skills and physical treatments in the world won’t work until we decide we want to make a real change and a real commitment to ourselves.
The racing heart and the sweaty palms weren’t something to stop or cover up. They were a signal. Eventually, those symptoms spiraled into anxiety, panic attacks, and hypothalamic amenorrhea (a state of infertility). These symptoms were asking me to dig a little deeper and to get honest with myself. The thing wasn’t necessarily the thing. The symptom was a signal, not the root problem itself.
I was living a life of “should’s:”
I should have this wardrobe and wear my hair a certain way.
My body should “look” a certain way.
I should outperform at work, move up.
I should want that high performing life - that big career, big house, [insert other material object here].
I should anticipate the needs of everyone around me, while denying my own.
I should never slow down or take breaks or show weakness.
I should run and work out intensely and only do hot/power/fast yoga because that’s what counts.
I should only eat certain foods.
That’s not freedom. That was a bondage of my own making. And, this sense of freedom is the number one reason so many seek out yoga. We long to feel free. We long to feel safe in our bodies. We long to live a life that sets our soul ablaze.
Because, innately and deep down we know that:
Rolling out of bed with an already racing heart and short fuse is not freedom.
Believing that we are a diagnosis is not freedom.
Feeling sluggish, and constantly sore in our physical bodies is not freedom.
Rushing from task to task is not freedom.
Feeling like we have to lift/run/whatever to get in a daily workout is not freedom.
Feeling insecure of our abilities is not freedom.
Living in constant fear or negativity is not freedom.
Doubting our deepest desires and dreams is not freedom.
Denying the divinity, beauty, and self-love within our hearts is not freedom.
Our inability to be present with our children or grandchildren is not freedom.
Berating ourselves daily is not freedom.
Always feeling like we’re never doing “enough” is not freedom.
Never having time to play or work on creative pursuits is not freedom.
These patterns of thinking and living have a tendency to manifest as physical ailments, physical states of dis-ease.
When I started to recognize my patterns that kept me locked in these cycles of overwhelm, anxiety, and exhaustion, I started to ask better questions. The first being: What makes you feel free? What brings you a sense of ease in your body and mind?
And, I couldn’t answer it. You may not know either. Ask the question anyway.
There’s a Yoga Sutra that reads:
Sthira Sukham Asanam.
Translation: The posture (in any yoga asana/pose) needs steadiness and ease. And, through that steadiness and ease within the physical body, the natural comfort and joy of our being is discovered. How beautiful, yes?
Because the way we move and breathe is the way we live.
Practicing yoga as a fully integrated path can help us get off the hamster wheel and open up our hearts to the answers we seek. As you move through a yoga practice, does it feel easeful and steady? Can you breathe through the poses? Here is where we cultivate steadiness into our lives.
That means that when we have hip pain, we don’t blast that hip with intense stretching or deep tissue massage. That means when we have excess anxiety, we don’t “go hard” in our movement practices to cope. That means we back off when our breathing becomes short, tight, and/or nonexistent in a yoga practice. We find the steadiness. We find the ease. Ease is different than easy anyway.
We pay more attention and move with intention. But, we need to be COMMITTED. We must show up for ourselves and our practice regularly for healing to occur. On this path, there is no one coming to save you. You are who you’ve been looking for.
Albert Einstein said, “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”
And so, we must learn to get out of our minds, into the wisdom of our bodies. We must realize that there are other subtle layers to our beings - the emotional, mental, energetic, intuitive, spiritual - and that to heal whatever state of dis-ease we are in, we must acknowledge them, too. This is the essence of yoga therapy practice.
The thing isn’t always the thing.
Your sweaty palms, your racing heart, your feelings of heaviness, your chronic low back pain, your overwhelming fatigue, your infertility, your headaches, your PCOS…the symptoms aren’t the end point. They aren’t something to be ignored or masked.
They are a signal, inviting you deeper. What is it that you need? What is your body really trying to tell you? Are you listening? Do you know how? Write to me with your reflections. I love hearing from you.
Jai Ma.
With love,
Leanne
