The Power of Transitions
Ah September! A month that typically sneaks up on us after the dog days of summer. It’s a time for fairs, abundant harvests, shorter days and cooler nights. It’s also that time of year when things fall back into routine. Kids are back to school, vacations have come to an end, and goals are being set for the rest of the year.
We move from the lazy days of July and August to simply racing from one life event to another.
Our calendars dictate when we have meetings, appointments, lunch plans, etc. and I tend to go about my day only focused on those events … the class at 9am, the meeting at 12, the networking event at 5pm.
Although these are all great things to be present for, I forget to be present for the time in between… the transitions.
The same is true in yoga. Classes are taught with the poses in mind … you move from one pose to another, focused only on the poses themselves and how they feel in your body. Achieving a posture is very rewarding for our ego, so that’s where we tend to focus.
But again, what about those transitions?
In a vinyasa class, we tend to push through chaturanga and up-dog so that we can find stillness in downward-dog. We also don’t notice the various steps it takes to achieve certain poses - only what it feels like once we’ve achieved it. We avoid the less comfortable or unattractive places in our practice in order to get to the “final pose”.
Transitions in yoga, and in life, are hard. When you are aligned in a yoga pose, you feel supported and stabilized by the bones and the muscles of your body. But, moving from one pose to another requires your body to figure out where your muscles need to go in order to find stability. It’s not as easy and it feels uncertain. And our brains don’t like uncertainty. So we tend to rely on momentum to push through to the next pose and most likely block out the experience all together.
But if we rush through the transitions, we end up skipping the journey. We fool ourselves into believing that once we arrive - in a pose, at a destination or a life stage - everything will be great. We forget that the time between is just as important and part of our lives too. Each moment, even the ones between the big events, are equally important and deserve our attention.
The transitions become postures themselves.
When you begin to notice the transitions - from the moment you unroll your yoga mat to the moment you leave class - you’ll begin to notice the entire experience as a whole. And this practice of paying attention on purpose in class will impact the way you pay attention in life.
So here’s a challenge for you this week (....if you choose to accept it).
During your practice, start to notice the transitions and how you respond to them. What are you holding on to? What are you pushing through to avoid? And then take that off the mat and notice the transitions in life. Don’t miss out on what’s right in front of you in order to get to the next ‘best thing’. Enjoy the experience as it unfolds.