Moving how Life Moves (especially in hard times)
Trigger Warning; Pet Loss / Grief
Many of you know that we said goodbye to our sweet pup, Sam, last week. He was the ultimate love bug and center point for our family. I’m so grateful he was with us for 11 years, and I’m so sad now.
It’s been a long time since I mourned a significant death in my life. Even longer since it was someone I lived with - the last one was my husband’s dog. I only knew him for the last few years of his life and that was when I was a new mother, so I wasn’t exactly pouring my heart into an elderly husky (though he was a great dog too).
So now I’m coming home to an empty house and looking in all of Sam’s spots. He’s not there. And the waves of sadness wash over me. They come in, they fill me up, and given time and space, they flow back out again. I go on with greeting my loves so they don’t come home to an empty house.
Life moves in Waves
This is how life moves - it moves in waves. Energy moves in waves. Light moves in waves (and particles). Seasons move in cycles, days move in cycles, life moves through beginnings - middles - endings- beginnings. Emotions move in waves too. So do cultural movements. So does the land and the sea. All of life moves in waves. This is not a metaphor, this is how life actually moves.
Yoga knows about Waves
In this time of upheaval that is more than personal but feels deeply personal I’m looking to nature and to the teachings of yoga for reassurance. Yoga knows life moves in waves. In Sanskrit it’s called Spanda - pulsation. And if you look beneath the surface of the asana I teach you’ll notice the ongoing pulsation of contraction and expansion in your body. Waves of drawing-in and pressing-out that move through your body.
Yogic sages looked out at the world and recognized the ongoing waves arising and descending through all of life. And they looked within and said, this is present in humans too. The best thing we can do, if we want to experience with peace and freedom is to align ourselves with the waves.
Can’t Control the Waves
That means we can’t get in the way of the waves. We can’t control them, or try to corral them. We can’t demand that they stop coming, try to keep them from crashing at the door, or try to hold them out at sea. We can only allow them to move in and out as they must. I mean, can you imagine trying to stop the sun from rising tomorrow morning?
But that’s what so many folks try to do. They try to get other people to do what they want so that they don’t have to feel uncomfortable. Or they deny what they feel. Or they over exaggerate so that the waves seem bigger than they actually are. They try to control their feelings. Or they try to control all of life. It’s just an attempt to feel ok, to feel happy. It’s an attempt to stop the waves of life.
But yoga and nature don’t work that way. Which means you don’t work that way. Controlling the waves - be they feelings or circumstances or other people - just doesn’t work. Something else does: Allowing and Aligning.
Ride them instead
Allowing is letting the waves that come to your shore, come. Whether you like them or not, allowing the waves to come to you. Aligning is like hopping on a surf board and going for a ride with the wave. Instead of stopping the wave, you let it take you and you let it return you. All waves eventually recede back into the sea, and that’s very important to remember.
Even when the surface of your life is choppy, deeper currents are at work. And in the deep, the very depths, it’s quiet. It’s peaceful. So I think that working with the waves of life has a bit of both - trusting the waves as they move in and out, and also keeping some part of yourself anchored in the deep.
For me right now, that looks like letting sadness come and tears flow, and then resolving back into quietness. It means being sad but not staying sad all day. It means trusting that this is part of something much bigger that I can’t know right now, but I’ll be able to point back to eventually. And it means continuing my yoga and meditation practices because they are the waves that carry me back to deep center where all waves resolve into peacefulness. On repeat. All of it, like ocean waves, on repeat day after day.
Your Breath is a Wave
Nature moves in waves
Life moves in waves
So do you
You move in waves
If you’re not feeling any wave right now - just breathe
It’s all right there as close as your breath.
Breathe in and feel the tide of breath rise in your chest
Breathe out and sense the falling back into emptiness
Rising / Falling
Filling / Emptying
Pulse in / Pulse out
Waves, pulsation, Spanda - it’s all right here, close as your breath
Once you recognize the wave of your breath, when you really feel it, you’ll drop in to something else: the peaceful center point at the Heart.
We’re Riding Waves Together
Remember your Heart is big, and wide, and strong, and soft enough to handle any wave you’re riding. So if life is taking you for a ride right now, get ready. Allow the waves to come, allow the waves to go. Align with them. Take the ride. And let your Heart welcome you back home.
I’ll see you out there.
The teaching of Spanda/waves is one of the many that are helping me understand & navigate these deeply unsettling times. I’ll be sharing more from yoga philosophy in coming weeks.
This particular post is influenced by Tantric Yoga philosophy I’ve learned from many teachers over the years. And by teachings from Josh Shrei in his course The Mythic Body.