Posted on 18 October 2013.
“Now, if you want to — and feel comfortable — taking it a step further,” the yoga instructor began with that non-threatening and non-challenging but motivating tone that yoga instructors use, “try closing your eyes.”
It’s funny how closing your eyes can make the ground and everything around you feel unstable.”
So true, I thought to myself, in yoga and in life.
If we close our eyes in the Tree position, we may become unstable, wobble, and then fall over. Our Tree was felled.
And in life, if we close our eyes to certain things that are troubling, difficult, or uncomfortable, we may find that everything around us feels unstable. If we ignore challenges or responsibilities we need to address, we may lose our footing. Not only do we “fall down on the job” in those areas we’re shutting our eyes to, or avoiding, but everything around us may suffer from our choice to close our eyes to our problems.
You have to be looking to find answers and you’re not going to find them with your eyes closed.
However, in yoga, closing our eyes provides the opportunity to increase our balance, improve our strength, test our flexibility, and center our focus. How can we develop a strong and stable stance if we avoid the greater challenge? How can we exercise our balance, strength, flexibility, and focus the most? In yoga, closing your eyes challenges each of those areas. We may topple over the first five times we shut our eyes while standing in the Tree, but then on the sixth we may discover that we stand firmly rooted to the ground, stable like an oak stretching to the sky.
But life isn’t yoga. (Which is unfortunate because I am much more relaxed in yoga than I am the rest of the day.) In life, if we close our eyes to the greater problems — or challenges — in our lives, we won’t grow. We won’t increase our balance, strength, flexibility, or focus. It is in addressing our problems with our eyes wide open and scanning every detail that we can, hopefully, come to a place of growth and maturity. Of course, there is a notable exception…we may address problems quite effectively if our eyes are closed in prayer.
I was in some other odd position — the Frog, I think — in a yoga class with a different instructor who said, “Now, if this position is uncomfortable, listen to your body and adjust a little to where you find it more comfortable. Just a small adjustment can make a huge difference.”
Again, true in life as well. Sometimes, something is bothering us and if we simply change one small thing we can improve the situation. Some simple examples: Get up 15 minutes earlier to avoid the now-we’re-running-late-to-school-or-work morning hysterics or go to bed thirty minutes earlier to be more rested for all the activities and demands we’ll face the next day.
It’s funny how much my mind works while my body is relaxing in yoga…but it is a quiet and peaceful time to pull away from the world and get lost inside one’s thoughts. And, because most of the classes I take are at a YMCA, the instructors aren’t afraid to encourage us to listen for God in this still and prayerful-like state. So while I’m twisting and bending on my mat, I’m thinking about the way the instructor’s comments apply to my world off the mat and considering what lessons God may want me to learn.
With my eyes closed — and my body making slight adjustments when something doesn’t feel right — I find that I’m not feeling unstable after all.
Jaletta Albright Desmond is a columnist who writes about faith, family, and the fascinatingly mundane aspects of daily life. She lives in Cornelius with her family. Contact her at jdesmond@bdtonline.com[1] .
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