Want to Build Strength? Start Surrendering.
After taking a year or so off from yoga to heal up a hamstring injury, new insights have been sparking since recently getting back on my mat.
Most recently from handstands.
Every time I kicked up into a handstand in class the other day it stuck. I wasn't even quite sure what to do with myself up there for so much longer than I'd normally be there. It felt like some external force was holding me up.
But it dawned on me that it wasn't that something from outside was exerting more force to hold me up.
It was that something within me was exerting less force.
Having been away from my practice for so long, I had no expectations of what it should look like that day. It just was what it was.
And with my ego in the backseat, my body seemed to naturally find its most effortlessly balanced sweet spot.
And it does feel effortless when we hit that balance between effort — exerting the force necessary to make something happen — and surrender — allowing life to naturally move through us.
Most of us spend an awful lot of time and energy efforting our way through our days. We pride ourselves on how much work we get done. We like to "make things happen," "be productive."
We spend so much of our lives doing things we think we "should" be doing.
So slowing down and being rather than doing can feel incredibly uncomfortable.
But if you're always efforting and never allowing, you'll constantly be out of balance.
That kind of juicy sweet spot comes to life at the intersection of effort and surrender.
With too little awareness and intention, we stay stuck in the same place. With too much force, we bulldoze right past the present moment.
But when you hit it just right, you get to hang in that ease-y space, where it feels like you're being magically supported.
You know when you've hit that sweet spot because the effort suddenly doesn't feel like work.
You don't have to think your way into what comes next, your being just knows how to take you there.
To some, the term surrender implies weakness; giving up, letting down, failing.
But letting go of control - aka surrendering - requires more strength and courage than just about anything else we can do.
Being willing to step into the unknown and let life do its thing, that takes so much bravery.
But what if your strength is actually proportional to your willingness to surrender control in - and to - life?
What would shift if you allowed a little more allowing into your days this week?
When you back off a bit, what support and ease do you notice life filling that space with?
Of course you can work as hard as you decide to in this life. But what if there's a way to let that work feel more effortless? Would you be interested?
Lots of Love,