Motivate
When we sit with our deepest selves there is potentially a wealth of acceptance of all our flaws & foibles! There’s a lot of Spiritual work that needs to happen around this though because the ego with which we identify is a harsh gate-keeper to that inner love. Often the motivation to change comes from outer circumstances, a death in the family, a realisation of the impermanence of the physical realm, a doctor’s warning or a sudden catastrophe. I am linking the 2 above statements in this blog because I feel from personal experience that both methods of motivation are effective & Yoga encourages unity & integration in all forms, therefore our Practice holds within it opportunities for motivation whether you are a skater, a deep-sea explorer or both!! Yoga’s most important premise to prioritise is ‘Ahimsa’ or non-violence, by that rationale we must constantly work on entering our Meditations & physical exertions from a space of love! This is the hardest part for most of us….that ego with which we identify? it would have us believe that we don’t deserve love, it would have us think that we are unworthy of such a beautiful gift & it hardens the heart & separates us from ourselves & each other.
Going deep straight away is overwhelming…no doubt! Even with a willingness to unravel the traumas & tensions which keep us knotted & imprisoned, it is impossible to cure our condition all at once! So here is where we come up to the surface, here is where we look for unlikely motivations as helping hands for our Soul-Practices!
The following is a list of my 3 current, most effective external motivations to deepen the efficacy of my Yoga Medicine:
1. The insufferable greed of others; This little gem is a lesson in how NOT to be but also it teaches us that there is a depth of programming in our society which is based on ‘success’ being about gain, when we attempt to understand this we can see almost immediately that the folks who we perceive as greedy have come from a lineage of graspers who are driven by a fear of loss. The insufferable greed of others encourages me in a Practice of genuine active compassion these days, compassion for how corrosive avarice can be to those who engage in it, we all dream of a bit more financial freedom but there is a cost to massive material opulence & we have seen how diminishing it is for the Soul, my Practice is to eliminate my own resentment for the predicament we are in due to those who take more than their share and to pray for those who are asleep to what they do even if they don’t know they are asleep!
2. The insensitivity to our sensitivities; The fact is that no one outside ourselves can fully know what we are going through, we all have a different set of circumstantial ingredients for example one of my ear canals is at a jaunty angle and high pitched sounds cripple me (I famously avoid hen-parties for this reason!) We can have the most accomodating, well-meaning and loving people around us and we may still be hurt in some way by how they act. Often we ourselves are insensitive to others without even knowing it! My Yoga around this is to endeavour to be more magnanimous in my forgiveness of the mistakes of others as well as my own mistakes. We are all ignorant to a certain degree, even the most intuitive & kind ones will miss a trick sometimes.
3. Rudolf Nureyev; Some of you already knew, now all of you do!!! My background is in Classical Ballet & during my journey on that path I encountered, not the man himself but an observation of his deeply moving artistry & mastery of his craft. He said once ‘The morning I awake with no pain is the day I am dead’ While I’m sure there is a lot lost in translation here because Russian is so much more poetic than English, the intensity of the message has always been enough to motivate me through my changing scenes of life. I do not take it literally anymore but I still use it, albeit from a different perspective, as a motivational tool. I was once someone who forced myself onto the Yoga mat out of not feeling good enough, strong enough, thin enough or accomplished enough but now I get on the mat because even through the pain of this life we can experience such profound beauty that our hearts stay open. We can use our Practice to STAY OPEN, to let love in, to give love, to BE love… even when the mind doesn’t believe it, the Soul is always ready!
Find your grist for the mill, find your motivation for your Practice from the unlikely tools out there which present themselves every week, it could be an annoying brother, it could be a broken leg, it could be a crucifying insult, use life’s unpleasantries to inspire you, let daily difficulty not only be your Yoga mat but your flying carpet to Freedom!
