Stillness

 This past year has been riddled with challenges that have made it difficult to write in this blog.  Throughout this time, yoga has been a constant.  It is now one of the loves of my life.  Sometimes I cry, when I think of how much yoga means to me.  And I can’t even explain why, I just feel it.  Does there need to be justification for loving something?  Hmmm…..I think not. I love yoga! J

I plan, in this blog, to go through my journals, extract the information written since I started yoga, and write my thoughts, but not today. 

Today I want to talk about stillness.

Stillness:  is the state or instance of being quiet or calm. (www.wordnik.com/words/stillness)  It is tranquility, calm, rest, repose, peacefulness, and quiet. (http://synonyms.woxikon.com/english-synonyms/stillness.php)

The idea of stillness, when first presented to me, was described as rest, something that my body was in dire need of.  However, rest meant sleep to me.  I was confused.  Could this just be semantics?

My body and mind were constantly on the go, thinking, doing, thinking, doing.  My adrenal glands were on overwork. I was constantly in flight or fight stance. No wonder I was having digestive and other stress related problems!

You need more rest, I was told.  I rest all the time, or so I thought.  It’s back to the semantics issue.  I figure if I don’t have anything in my hands doing, or a laptop project going on, or maybe I'm just watching TV, that I am resting.  Wrong.  Stimulus of any kind detracts from stillness. 

Am I afraid to be still? The first few times I did savasana, corpse pose, where you have to still your body, then your mind, I was uncomfortable.  I was alone with me.  That was scary.  I don’t know why, but it was. 

Savasana was and still is one of my challenges with practicing yoga.  I am better than when I started almost 2 ½ years ago, but I still struggle. It’s practice, along with “steady, smooth, fine and deep breathing without any jerky movements of the body soothes the nerves and calms the mind.  The stresses of modern civilization are a strain on the nerves for which Savasana is the best antidote.” (p.424 Light on Yoga)  “Savasana…..refreshes both the body and the mind.” (p. 435 Light on Yoga)  It “….removes fatigue.” (p.59 Light on Yoga)  Good reasons for practicing savasana on a daily basis.

The easy part of savasana is to still the body.  But how do you still the mind?  I was told to imagine a pond into which a rock had been thrown, creating ripples.  Then to smooth the ripples out, perhaps even posting a sign that says “Rock Throwing Forbidden”.  I was to relax or still my mind in that same way.  I tried and tried, but it didn’t work for me.

The next thing I did was to thank each part of my body and send love to them while I laid still in savasana.  That process helped eliminate the chatter in my mind from the day or problems that needed solving, but it did not still my mind.  However, I did feel like I was making some progress.

One day while I was going through this procedure of thanking and sending love to my body, an interesting thing happened.  Everything went black and I felt like I was falling into a black hole and then floating.  When I looked up, I saw the stars.  That gave me some comfort and calmness.  I thought that maybe this was my pond with the ripples.  It made sense because I love studying about the stars.  However, I am afraid of heights, so why did I feel calm falling, then floating above the black hole?   Besides, if I went into a black hole, it would be extremely cold (which I hate) and I would be torn to bits! Do I over-analyze things?  Don’t answer that.  I decided to let go of my questions for a while and just use this visualization to help me relax and be still.

A few weeks later, I was using the black hole visualization, when the thoughts came to my mind:  the black hole is sucking away and destroying all fear, problems, challenges, and negativity in my life.  I am floating because I am lighter with the shedding of these things and free. I am not afraid because fear is gone. The stars are there to represent hope and love.   It was an amazing insight.  I cried.

Another thing I tried was to say the mantra of “soothe”, while following my breath in an out. That helped too.

My savasana practice has changed over the two and one half years that I have been working at it. I am better at completely blanking out my mind,  but complete stillness eludes me.  I don’t get upset about it anymore.  If my mind can’t settle, I just acknowledge it and go on.  There is always a degree of stillness that I find.  Perhaps that is enough.