Sunday 10 May 2015

Wriggling out




We all have Houdini tendencies when we're faced with discomfort. Here's how I work with my inner escape artist. Full article here, and below.

I meditate every morning, vipasana-style, for twenty minutes. How do I know it’s twenty minutes? Because I use a meditation app on my iPhone which opens and closes the session with the sound of a singing bowl. Having a set period of time for my sitting practice is useful because it means I leave the house for work on time (usually, anyway…) and because I find I can get more deeply into the practice if I’m not “deciding” on when to come out of it; we don’t “decide” on the timings of most of what happens in our day-to-day lives, so we may as well get some practice in on the cushion.

But here’s the thing. About two-thirds of the way through sitting, I often think: “But what if my iPhone has run out of batteries and switched itself off without my knowing and I will be left sitting here FOREVER?” Then there is usually the thought, “It’s probably fine. Just hang in there a while and relax.” “But seriously, what if?” And this goes on for some time. Sometimes, in the past, I’d decide I was as good as “done” (as if I were a soufflĂ© rising) so I’d close my practice, and then check my phone—only to find there were about 53 seconds left on the timer.

The iPhone story my mind tries to tell me is basically an amazingwriggling-out device; it means I can wriggle out of discomfort at my own volition. Right foot going to sleep? Weird pain in my hip? Incessant repeating of a particular line of thought in my mind? Impatient? No problem! Let’s just wriggle on out via a handy escape route.

The point of this practice though, at least for me, is to get comfortable with my own discomfort. To see it, feel it and know it—and stay with it. Because there is, ultimately, no escape from discomfort. We go from one thing to the next, generally speaking. And there’s a positive side to this, too, as articulated perfectly in a poem by Rainer Maria Rilke; in Go to the Limits of Your Longing, he writes, “No feeling is final.” This, to me, gets to the very core of meditation practice. You’ve surely heard the analogy that our thoughts are like clouds, moving across the sky; occasionally obscuring the sun, but always passing on by.

To me, this line, “no feeling is final” has all life in it. The relief and balm of knowing that it’s okay if you’re in pain, it will pass. And the heartbreaking tenderness of knowing that feelings of joy pass, too.

In vipasana meditation, we bring a light attention to the breath while we sit, and when the thoughts come—as they do—we recognize them, maybe acknowledge them as “thinking”, and return to the breath. Here they come, here they go.

Most of us have wriggling out tendencies in our physical yoga practice, too. It might be obvious, like taking a bathroom break if a pose you don’t like comes up in class. Or maybe it’s a bit more subtle. A particular favorite of mine is in Warrior 2 pose where I’ll straighten my front leg because I’m feeling discomfort in holding the pose. Because I have an established practice it can be quite a subtle kind of wriggling: “I know my body, I’m just working with it.” But when I do this, it means that I don’t get to watch my mind struggling, and realize that my body is actually fine.

I’m wondering if you, too, are a fellow wriggler-out-er? And if so, where and when you catch yourself doing this?

Moving away from what we dislike, and towards what we like are such fundamental aspects of most of our daily lives. Aversion and attraction keep us permanently running from pillar to post, seeking the thing which will make us happy, or stop us from being unhappy. We dash about, and life keeps happening; hard things keep happening and beautiful things keep happening and maddening things keep happening and gladdening things keep happening. The question is, do we want to be on the run all the time?

When I first started practicing yoga, I remember hearing a teacher use the word “equanimity” as something we could work towards. And part of me thought, “That sounds boring. Why would I just want to feel ‘meh’ about everything?”

But my understanding of equanimity now has changed. To me, it’s more about finding a steady place from which to fully experience our aliveness. To stop trying to run away, and instead feel my joy and sorrow and touch my emotions and thoughts; to live, really.

Like I said earlier, I am a pretty adept escape artist. I think we all have our Houdini tendencies that we’ve honed over the years. But the same fluidity that finds ways of moving out of and around things also helps me step back sometimes and see what I’m doing (and often have a quiet laugh to myself about it).

Real, deep discovery about ourselves and what we’re capable of is so often found in the most uncomfortable places—as I have absolutely learned in the many shades of discomfort I’ve felt in yoga and meditation. I don’t have to like it, but I don’t have to dislike it either. No feeling is final. Okay. That’s something I can work with. After all, when I do manage to stop trying to escape, that’s usually when I really arrive.

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