Unstick your Bliss
There’s this yoga student we’ll call Jane who’s come to class every week for a decade. Pinched lips, furrowed brow, and sadness like a veil hanging round her. She speaks to the other students and the teacher but it’s like talking to someone in the bottom of a well. You know she’s in there, but you’re not sure quite how far down you’d have to go to actually touch her flesh.
Jane moves through her poses each week without complaint. She never asks for anything. She seems uplifted when she leaves the class. And says it’s like going to church. But the fog around her is never quite penetrated. I guess, when you’re coming up from the bottom of a deep well, even “uplifted” can still be a long way down.
One regular Sunday Jane shows up for a class about work and play. In the 90-minutes of twisting, strengthening, playing and stretching something happens. Jane transforms. The combination of movement, intention, language, and just being together with other beings who are willing to play brings her up out of the well, light as an empty bucket on a rope.
Her face softens and opens. A smile, radiant and wide, graces her mouth. Her eyes are clear and fresh. And when you talk to her you feel her right there with you. A warm beating heart. A gracious joyful presence. A woman alive within herself. It’s a moment of absolute Grace to witness that transformation. She hugs you, shares her insight then disappears into her day.
The next week, the thin-faced woman returns.
YOGA & BLISS
The yoga works in mysterious ways. Ways I can’t begin to comprehend or try to control. And though scientists study it and ‘gurus’ say there’s a formula that produces exactly these results, I know that can’t possibly be true. Transformation can’t be coerced by following a formula.
Early sages believed in layers within us: physical body layer, breath body layer, mental/emotional body layer, wisdom body layer, bliss body layer. Life happens. The layers get collapsed, or crimped, or wrinkled. They get contracted and locked down. The contractions force the essence, the Bliss, to the bottom of the well and build stone walls up around it so it’s stuck down there. We can go our whole lives with Bliss buried at the center of our hearts and never even know its there.
We do all we can to unstick the Bliss. Intense physical asana to clear up musculoskeletal blockages. Contrived breathing techniques to cleanse the energy channels. Mindset awareness and therapy to clear the wounds of heart and mind. Listening to the wisdom from the deep. We can do it all. It all can help. And still the Bliss can stay buried.
But then there’s the mystery part. Sometimes just the right combination of words and postures and community; rest and activity and Grace come along and the crimped, contracted, collapsed stone barrier gets its top blown right off.
Bliss comes radiating out like sunshine that’s been hidden behind a cloud. Hearts burst open. And love pours through. Everything seems simple and shimmers with inherent beauty. And we wonder why we’ve been working so hard.
INTO THE MYSTERY
It seems to me that transformation doesn’t come for those who are playing it safe. Rule followers and comfort seekers are rewarded in a way. But they aren’t able to budge the biggest deepest stones that entrap the heart.
No, that kind of awakening seems reserved only for those who become intimate with Mystery. Until you’re willing to go into the unknown, transformation will stay away.
All of this is to say there isn’t an answer, or simple formula. None that I know of anyway.
There’s a question:
Are you willing to lean in to the Mystery?
Are you willing to go into the big unfathomable, unknown where there are no guarantees and risk transformation?
If so, then something is possible.
Your willingness is all that’s needed. After all, what else do you have to do?