Moving from Momentum to Moment

One aspect of New Zealand culture that I really treasure is the importance we place on taking time out of our work, our routines, and our usual obligations every year. In this country, it's not just about the days right before and after the offical holidays. Most often our break is a full three to six weeks of pure enjoyment of family, friends, and leisure! In the holiday gatherings, we reconnect and reaffirm our closest relationships. In travels near or far, we get out into the beauty of the natural landscapes. In this time "away", we give ourselves permission to rest and replenish- body, mind, and spirit. No matter where we've been or what we've done, we arrive back where we left off feeling re-nourished, rejuvenated, and re-inspired.

This is the great gift of perspective!

I recently heard certified Anusara teacher Noah Maze (who is coming to teach in NZ this year!) say, "Time creates our experience but our experience also creates time. So, in order to change Time, we can change our experience."

Read that sentence again and think about it... I have!
I am a Capricorn by chance, american by birth, and a goal oriented, perfectionist by virtue of my upbringing and my culture. Because of this, my tendency is to live more in the world of that first sentence - Time creates my experience. And, often my day to day experience becomes - There is never enough Time!! Sound familiar?

Rather than inhabiting each moment, we get caught in momentum.
When this happens, life moves fast and we often feel out of control and dis empowered. The very nature of this life is movement, flux, pulsation. We feel this in the most basic and vital principle of existence- the flow of breath. What I have learned through my yoga practice is while I can't change time marching on, what I CAN change is how I experience that movement, moment to moment.

As we shift from focus on momentum to focus on moment, Time slows down and our experience expands exponentially.

Holidays are good for this! We give ourselves permission to fully immerse in the moment - a good book, the catching of a fish, an overdue conversation with an old friend, a long decadent brunch, the sound of the sea, the grass under foot...We practice another way of BEING.

When we are fully present in our experience, we cease to identify with the movement of life and instead tap into a steadiness of presence that sees, hears, tastes, smells, feels, simply IS in each moment as it arises. Time changes because our experience of time, moment to moment, shifts. The challenge becomes maintaining this practice of moment to moment awareness (and delight!) when we return back to work, school, and the world of obligations. How can we keep making our "ordinary" life feels fresh again?

Yoga gives us an opportunity to practice presence.

On the mat, we use the full engagement of our body in union with our breath to yoke the awareness of the our mind to our immediate, visceral experience. As it arises. Whether we are holding steady in Warrior, kicking up to our first handstand, or sinking deeply into meditation or relaxation, the practice is the same.

It involves the willingness to open ourselves fully. To drop our barriers, our boundaries, our judgements, our expectations, our backward or forward projections and open to the sensations, thoughts, and feelings that are being offered right NOW. In doing so, we return our attention again and again to what is steady, perceiving and absorbing our experience in the world. When we come to know this place of presence amidst beauty, bliss, boredom OR hardship, we have access to move amidst the flow of our lives with a renewed, weighty sense of BE-ingness.

Like all things, it gets easier with practice and with support of kula - community!