In my ever contemplative mind I am working on cultivating a bird’s eye view. It’s something I do as a yoga teacher, keeping the bigger perspective of the room, who made the effort to step on their mat, the group energy as a whole as well as the time of day, week, season… From this I tend to cultivate a practice that integrates my deeper thoughts, the conversation’s happening before class and the actual shape and approach to the poses. Then the other day, I found myself getting agitated by someone I love. You know that feeling, it’s prickly, hot, and it starts to irritate you to the point that you loose sight of what is really important. Then I thought to myself, how can I pull back, widen my own eyes, and hold a bigger perspective of the situation and that initial agitation began to dissolve. Now saying this, everything didn’t just change immediately, but I did, my vantage point shifted and I wondered what was the significance of such a minor thing.
Here’s the flip side, you have to also pay attention to the details. There are many moments that nothing will happen unless you notice the small stuff…just don’t sweat it – right. Knowing when to swoop in, land and then take back off again would be beneficial. The specific structure makes all the difference in the world, even choosing the right words can drastically change an experience. Finding a super fluidity between the two is grace, is skill in action, is total awareness. Easy right?
Agreed. Such a difficult balance to determine what the “small” things are that “society” tells us not to sweat at all, but sometimes they are the key to figuring out something important about ourselves or others. And sometimes the “big” things, really aren’t that important after all…
I guess that is sort of another definition of practicing yoga off your, or at least to me, off my mat??….hmmm. Thank you Teresa, as always, for the reminders! Xoxoxo.
It sounds easy but it isn’t always that way.
Exactly! Keeping perspective is tough stuff.