“Invisible threads are the strongest ties” ~ Friedrich Nietzsche
This is the time of the year I crash the hardest. The holidays have passed. And while they were filled with their own share of ups and downs, the distraction and fuller schedule they offered is gone. To stave off the winter melancholy, which has already started seeping in, I've decided to take a Yoga class.
"The mind is not comfortable being alone with itself. The mind is constantly drawn to any outside object. It is worrying or stressing about the past. It is anticipating the future. It is never in the present." Patty McPhillips ... my Yoga instructor.
These words hit me hard when we were starting out the class with a brief meditation. I've meditated and done Yoga off and on for about 15 years now, but sometimes it feels good to be brought back to the basics. The idea behind meditating is reining in that surreptitious mind, or caging the "mind monkey" as Buddhists call it. The idea tonight was just to let myself "be."
It sounds so simple, but, even after all these years, I still struggle. Tonight, I felt myself pulled in every direction; however, I was able to finally just be present in that class and by the end of it, I was in such a serene state of mind, I hardly remember how I got home.
One of the other areas we touched on and something that has been in my mind and heart for days now — connections.
Whether it's the "invisible ties,"as Nietzsche calls them, between the mind, the heart, the body, the soul. Our connection to the earth. Or the connections we make with other people, it all comes down to one main thing: Connection is life. It's the very thing that keeps us alive, keeps us propelling forward. In the case of Yoga tonight, it was about the connection of breath to life. Without breath, we cease to exist. Without the mind, we cease living and so on.
I believe the same about connections with other people. Some have changed my life, for better and for worse. Sometimes, they can haunt ... sometimes they can elate, challenge, inspire and nourish ... and in the absence of that person or presence, sometimes they can hurt, like a constant thrumming ache. But honestly, I'd have it no other way. I'd rather feel those connections across the spectrum than sit back idly and feel nothing.
So, tonight, when I was sitting there, just being in the moment, I felt everything inside me slowly deflate until I was just ... me. I wasn't anything more or less. I was just me. And it was OK. It was a familiar feeling, like deja vu, but one I've only been able to catch in glimpses. Yet, it gives me hope.
So even now, despite the aching thrum inside me — the confusion, the fear of being left alone as everything changes around me, moves away from me — all I have to do is close my eyes and find my way back there, to that moment. Because when I was there tonight, I suddenly felt connected to everything, like a plug in the dark finding an outlet. I was in.
And those in my mind and heart today, whether they knew it or not ... they were in, too.
<3
~ C ~
This is the time of the year I crash the hardest. The holidays have passed. And while they were filled with their own share of ups and downs, the distraction and fuller schedule they offered is gone. To stave off the winter melancholy, which has already started seeping in, I've decided to take a Yoga class.
"The mind is not comfortable being alone with itself. The mind is constantly drawn to any outside object. It is worrying or stressing about the past. It is anticipating the future. It is never in the present." Patty McPhillips ... my Yoga instructor.
These words hit me hard when we were starting out the class with a brief meditation. I've meditated and done Yoga off and on for about 15 years now, but sometimes it feels good to be brought back to the basics. The idea behind meditating is reining in that surreptitious mind, or caging the "mind monkey" as Buddhists call it. The idea tonight was just to let myself "be."
It sounds so simple, but, even after all these years, I still struggle. Tonight, I felt myself pulled in every direction; however, I was able to finally just be present in that class and by the end of it, I was in such a serene state of mind, I hardly remember how I got home.
One of the other areas we touched on and something that has been in my mind and heart for days now — connections.
Whether it's the "invisible ties,"as Nietzsche calls them, between the mind, the heart, the body, the soul. Our connection to the earth. Or the connections we make with other people, it all comes down to one main thing: Connection is life. It's the very thing that keeps us alive, keeps us propelling forward. In the case of Yoga tonight, it was about the connection of breath to life. Without breath, we cease to exist. Without the mind, we cease living and so on.
I believe the same about connections with other people. Some have changed my life, for better and for worse. Sometimes, they can haunt ... sometimes they can elate, challenge, inspire and nourish ... and in the absence of that person or presence, sometimes they can hurt, like a constant thrumming ache. But honestly, I'd have it no other way. I'd rather feel those connections across the spectrum than sit back idly and feel nothing.
So, tonight, when I was sitting there, just being in the moment, I felt everything inside me slowly deflate until I was just ... me. I wasn't anything more or less. I was just me. And it was OK. It was a familiar feeling, like deja vu, but one I've only been able to catch in glimpses. Yet, it gives me hope.
So even now, despite the aching thrum inside me — the confusion, the fear of being left alone as everything changes around me, moves away from me — all I have to do is close my eyes and find my way back there, to that moment. Because when I was there tonight, I suddenly felt connected to everything, like a plug in the dark finding an outlet. I was in.
And those in my mind and heart today, whether they knew it or not ... they were in, too.
<3
~ C ~
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