The Wisdom of Yoga

I’ve been doing a lot of yoga lately and I really love it. I’ve always preferred slower, more deliberate forms of exercise and yoga fits in perfectly. Getting the most out of yoga requires looking inwardly and really focusing on the movements of your body. When you are doing a yoga position, you are taught to exhale into it. Not to strain or force yourself but to relax into the position when you breathe out. I’ve never been very physically flexible and yoga is helping me with this area of my physical fitness regime.

Easing into things, instead of forcing or straining is good advice in many aspects of life. When we want to make a change in our lives, many of us make all sorts of plans and then push and force and strain to get where we want to be. When things don’t move the way we want, as quickly as we want, we get frustrated. Plan-making is a wise thing but perhaps we need to step back just a bit and allow the change to happen; allow ourselves to ease into it.

Whether in business or personal relationships, always pushing and pulling to get what we want can do some real damage. If you want to see change, present your case and then have the patience to stand back and allow the other person or persons to consider and decide if they want to join with you or not. If they don’t want to come along, don’t waste your energy being mad at them. If you truly want the change you seek, keep your focus but don’t try and force it. If it’s the right thing, it will happen for you.

If allowing things to happen doesn’t come easily for you, start out small. Ease into it. Are you one of those people who feel the need to ensure that everyone knows everything about something that’s going on? Unless you’ve been specifically charged with that task, try stepping back and just allowing things to come together without your help. You may find, to your surprise, that they come together just fine. You may also find that you are much less stressed.

When you feel yourself getting frustrated by the pace of allowing things to happen on their own time, take a breath, and focus on releasing those feelings. Differentiate between things you can affect and things you cannot. You may be able to affect a change in your poor time management but there’s not a whole lot you can do about your boss’s ability to appreciate you. Additionally, think about the things you NEED to affect versus the things you don’t. You may need to be personally responsible for getting your kids off to school in the morning but do you really need to be responsible for making sure your chronically late girlfriend makes it to lunch on time?

If you’re unhappy about being single, beyond making an effort with your personal appearance and getting out there and being social there’s not a whole lot you can do to speed up the process of finding a mate. If you’re unhappy with your job, beyond working on your resume, brushing up on your skills and keeping your ears and eyes open, you can’t force a new job to magically appear. You’ll only make yourself crazy if you allow yourself to become too frustrated with the pace of change. Learning to allow change to happen can be difficult at first but well worth the effort.

Like we learn in yoga; inhale and then relax, ease into the posture of change and just allow it to happen. Another thing we learn in yoga? The strain that we feel today, will make us stronger tomorrow.