I joined a yoga studio down the street from my house. I joined in hopes of making space in my mind and my day to calm down. I am fairly active but I often times am running or doing higher intensity workouts where I’m focused on surviving and not puking. Yoga is not such a form of fitness, I spent the last fifteen minutes of my class laying on my side with pillows and blankets strategically placed so as to avoid any discomfort, while we were spritzed with essential oils and listened to little ringing bells. The teachers always extend their “s” sound out until it slowly fades and they do this weird tonal thing with their voice that makes me suddenly unsure if I am sleeping or unconscious, but whatever it is I like it.
I left the class really happy, which is usually what physical activity does for me, but I also left it deeply calm.
For the speed at which we move it’s shocking how a day can pass without our awareness. We’re accomplishing and tasking, and yet hardly ever paying attention because we’re inundated and now addicted to entertainment and quick hits of social media. It's constant movement and little progress, not unlike the doggy paddle.
With a mindless busy mind I find that matters of the heart are difficult to come by. I've begun a new study in which I'll be pursuing spirituality through contemplation, prayer and silence. I have found it an unbelievable feet of consciousness to stay in the place of a quiet mind, but like fitness I practice and have found it changes more than my mind in that moment but it extends into my thought life beyond. It quiets the endless chatter, which thins the space between me and my heart, and I find I have more time, more space, more thoughts, more prayer, and abundantly more peace. It is so much more than relaxing or being less busy, but about finding a true stillness that is impervious to the noise that surrounds. I have come to realize that it is not that we find God there in the calm, but that we can now notice Him in everything, which is where He has been all along.