I was in my twenties when I started dabbling with yoga and meditation. For a long while, it was like many things are with me: all or nothing, coming and going in fits and starts. Looking back through the lens of years of experience and the patterns of thousands of students, I can see it for what it was. In the beginning, I did just enough practice to make me feel better. I did what was needed to take the edge off the pain of being human. And once that sharp edge was smoothed a bit, I fell back into old habits. Until again the discomfort of being became too great and back to the mat I’d go.
I can’t identify exactly when I shifted from a stop-and-go form of practice to something truly daily—or at least “daily-ish.” But it came from a realization that arose over time. Because here’s the thing. When we first come to yoga or meditation, we often get big a-ha moments. We experience tremendous relief from whatever had been ailing us. We make a giant leap forward in awareness and in our general evolution. But after that initial shift in vibration, the changes are often more subtle, more nuanced. What we are getting from the practice is less obvious.
In those early years of practice, I eventually found that it wasn’t so much about what happened when I got on the mat or sat on the cushion, but what happened when I didn’t do those things. Regular practice generates a nearly undetectable steadiness that grows deep beneath the surface. It requires regular and consistent nurturing. When neglected, the foundation of that steady okay-ness crumbles and things go sideways pretty quickly. And it was that realization— something important is happening over time, even if I don’t feel it in the moment— that offered the necessary motivation to build the daily-ish practice that has lasted for over twenty years.
To put it simply, structure was necessary to create freedom. Have I always wanted to get out of bed in the early hours and do the thing? Absolutely not. But has my physical and mental well-being relied upon my doing so? Absolutely yes. So I found the answer, right? I figured it all out, right? Apparently not.
I’ve come to find that the structure that has been in place for so long to help keep the wheels on had become too rigid. While I had the idea in my head that practice is something I get to do, and that it’s essential for my sanity and physical capacity, it had become a joyless, rote thing. I was doing the practices because that’s just what I do. Which is not a good reason to do anything.
I am still experimenting with what it looks like to create an attitudinal and functional change to this daily ritual. The answer is not to abandon it all, but to go about practice in a different way. I can see how the structure that initially liberated me became a cage of sorts that after all of these years felt demanding and limiting. It’s funny because even as I am writing this, I can think of so many times I’ve taught about the necessity of changing and growing your practice over time. That the thing that once lit you up and set you free, if never changed, will eventually lead to stagnancy. So I already knew this in principle. I have (by necessity) changed my practice again and again over the years. But I didn’t see it this time. Again, it’s more subtle and nuanced.
So what does this have to do with you? Maybe it’s about your daily practice, but maybe it’s not. Perhaps for you the question is where in your life have you put structure or discipline into place— for good reason— but perhaps have failed to revisit that original form or intention for too long? Are those structures (or habits or patterns or beliefs) still serving you? Are they moving you toward liberation or have they become a joyless cage? What once held meaning, but ow feels like you are just going through the motions?
I continue to feel the immediacy of impermanence and am looking to imbue normal daily life with more joy, awareness, wholeness. I can see how the things that are good for us– the foods, the people, the practices, the habits– are not a set lifetime prescription. We must keep asking what do I need now? How can we bring more awareness to the ongoing process of change and evolution, taking the whole of our lives into account as we do so?
