Yogis, I am going with the flow. Following my body’s lead of adapting to current conditions, my ‘maturing’ asana practice is teaching me what SmartFlow Yoga really means. I’ve been letting my current interests guide me to the feeling of awake-ness and presence that yoga promises. Listening to birdsong, delighting in all the new waterfalls that have sprung to life this wet winter—and the smell of earth emanating from that redwood that fell in the last storm – and watching the spring-initiated changes of color as the little brown birds in the yard morph to reds and flashy yellows, and the brilliant white crowns appear. I find that there are many moments in my day – if I’m paying attention – that fill me with delight. And like a “good” meditation, that delight eclipses all the mundane distractions, and neutralizes the nervous system’s habit of hijacking my mood.
My ritual of late is to bring to mind something that drops me right into that delight. I remember something simple, known, ordinary that transports me reliably to wonder. With closed eyes and still body, I feel all the shifts: shoulders relaxing, a subtle fullness to my breath, a singularity to my attention, eclipsing the stream of thinking, thinking that is so often there. I allow the image or sound memory or recollection of smell transport me to the feeling state of wonder, of awe.
Here’s one recent example: I was trying to sit one morning and the little aches in my hip and low back, from a few hours of weeding the day before, made it challenging to settle. Suddenly a memory of a gooey, pinkish-brown worm wriggling out of the soil sprang to mind. For whilst wrangling with “is this a pull-it weed or is this a keep-it native plant?”, from beneath the roots of a well-established clover I exposed this big, juicy worm. I paused my pulling as he daylighted himself and I waited—spellbound – until he dug back into the soft, damp earth and meandered away. For those couple of minutes all my concerns fell: all thoughts of me and mine, what should and shouldn’t be were absolutely upstaged by this 4-5 inches of slithering slimy-ness. I was 100% with him (her?). When I returned to my task I was refreshed, and literally dug back in to my chore with renewed focus, awake and aware.
Now, worms may not be your cup of tea—I didn’t know they were my mine! I do know that looking for, expecting even, to encounter a simple joyous moment is life-changing. And learning to stay with it, lingering in a joyous moment a bit longer, and acknowledging it and the effect on my whole system is a powerful tool. It’s a way of filling my cup with joy and wonder, and building inner cues and pathways to return to center. Instead of letting my nervous system manage my days with its express tracks to anxiety and fear responses, I can replace those well-worn, hard-wired paths with expressways to joy.
Expecting to be delighted and being open to the most simple, ordinary sources of joy is my path to wonder and my go-to reset to returning to presence.
