I am a strong willed human being. I don't know if I was born that way or I learned to be but at this point the answer to that question is unimportant to me. What is important to me is realizing that trying to impose my will on life to try to exact from life what I want takes an inordinate amount of energy and then never works the way I want it to. This is a fact that I tried to avoid and spent a lot of time resisting.
All of this willful resistance came to a head for me about 10 years ago in a wholesale surrender. It was tragic, humbling and a huge relief. Details aside, (maybe some of them later) the pain of the problem became greater than the pain of the solution. And the solution was to live in ease and give up the resistance.
Resistance is held in our bodies as well as our minds. I discovered the truth of this statement through experience. Meditation was, from the beginning, part of the solution I was implementing in my life and was providing assistance to me. Only in looking back can I now see that without the involvement of my physical body, I was only going to get so far in my meditation practice. I needed my body to get on board in order to fully access my heart!
This discovery was, of course, accidental. I began to "take" yoga. My entry into yoga was purely about self preservation and vanity. I had hit my 40's and wasn't aging well. My posture was deteriorating and just wasn't strong. As I began to truly practice yoga the real value of the practice began to reveal itself.... the yoga practice was bringing the surrender of my mind together with a surrender of my body; and together they were up to the challenge of this strong willed human.
The resistance in my mind had cracked and then the resistance in my body cracked..... And we all know what grows up through cracks in the pavement.
HALLELUJAH
All of this willful resistance came to a head for me about 10 years ago in a wholesale surrender. It was tragic, humbling and a huge relief. Details aside, (maybe some of them later) the pain of the problem became greater than the pain of the solution. And the solution was to live in ease and give up the resistance.
Resistance is held in our bodies as well as our minds. I discovered the truth of this statement through experience. Meditation was, from the beginning, part of the solution I was implementing in my life and was providing assistance to me. Only in looking back can I now see that without the involvement of my physical body, I was only going to get so far in my meditation practice. I needed my body to get on board in order to fully access my heart!
This discovery was, of course, accidental. I began to "take" yoga. My entry into yoga was purely about self preservation and vanity. I had hit my 40's and wasn't aging well. My posture was deteriorating and just wasn't strong. As I began to truly practice yoga the real value of the practice began to reveal itself.... the yoga practice was bringing the surrender of my mind together with a surrender of my body; and together they were up to the challenge of this strong willed human.
The resistance in my mind had cracked and then the resistance in my body cracked..... And we all know what grows up through cracks in the pavement.
HALLELUJAH
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