What is the lesson I continue to learn?
"What is the lesson I continue to learn?"
Tracee Stanley first introduced me to this self inquiry question in 2020. It is a question that supports the clearing of samskaras, mental impressions that can be thought of like a film or residue that clouds our vision. The best way I’ve found to get to know my samskaras is through listening and sensing with the body.
Recently, I was practicing progressive muscle relaxation. Progressive muscle relaxation is where you tense and release muscles in one limb at a time, eventually tensing and releasing the whole body at once, to finally rest down. In the past, this practice stressed me out. I would find I was already holding tension in my body and the act of tensing my body in the practice felt like adding extra tension when I only wanted less. But my relationship to tension shifted recently and created space for me to be able to know an answer to a lesson I continue to learn.
On this particular day as I was going about progressive muscle relaxation, I saw the existing tension in my body from a new perspective. I saw how outside of the practice, I regularly tense my body up in self defense, to protect myself from difficult situations and perceived threats. By tensing up, I prevent myself from being affected and transformed by new situations. I block the flow of new information that these challenging experiences offer me. I became used to hardening that it became an easy place to reside - like a habit that became part of my personality.
Through all of this my heart also became harder, which is counterintuitive because what I really want is heart connection. It is no wonder I created a journal about courageously showing up in the world with love! I needed it most.
All of these understandings came through while I was in the practice progressive muscle relaxation and accompanying restorative yoga poses. Often I think I am going to answer a self inquiry question like, “What is the lesson I continue to learn?,” through thinking about it really hard. But my body continues to call me back to reveal its wisdom. When it does, I feel like I receive a gift. It is an incredible feeling to emerge from a restorative practice with awareness of a message that was planted deep inside of me.
A few days later I read this in Joanna Macy’s book World as Lover, World as Self.
"We do not need to protect ourselves from change, for our very nature is change. Defensive self-protection restricts vision and movement like a suit of armor and makes it far harder to adapt. It not only reduces flexibility but also blocks the flow of information we need to survive. Our "going to pieces," however uncomfortable, can facilitate new perceptions, new data, and new responses."
I also revisited Tracee Stanley’s book Radiant Rest where she quotes John Vosler, speaking about yoga nidra which is a parallel practice to restorative yoga.
“It’s a non-doing practice, a practice of subtraction, you don’t have to do anything or make anything happen. You can’t make an experience, you ARE the experience, you are the vibration of the source.”
Restorative yoga offers a space for us to uncover answers to some of our deepest questions. The invitation is to show up and be willing to receive.
