Don't face an air sign with too much choice. She's likely to crumple into a screaming mess as her mind flits from one thing to another, seeing the advantages of one whilst talking herself out of it at the same time. If she's stressed, she'll be totally paralysed. That's how choice operates on me, anyhow. If I'm feeling good and balanced and secure, I'm firm and decisive - if I'm not, I can pick it up - whether it's an idea or a material object - and spin it around, shining the light through it and spinning it around before placing it back down and wailing: 'I just don't know!'.
We're faced with so much choice in this western world, and for those of us in positions of privilege (as I am painfully aware I am, being employed, educated and white in a decent country with a good standard of living) choices can be loud. They scream at you from newspapers, internet pop ups, and if you haven't managed to figure out which settings stop Google spying on your every search, little ads that pop up in the middle of an article you're reading online. They come thick and fast, like those little spider bots in the Matrix scuttling across the floor and under the door to creep in your ear and into your brain. It gets so we're not even sure what choices are really, genuinely our own anymore. Companies have done their research. They know exactly how to manipulate you so before you know it you're walking out that store with the item you didn't even know you needed.
We've also got those very, very human judging minds. We compare our lives to everyone elses. Happiness is dependent on attaining the elusive ideal. There's a reason Instagram is the worst social media for your mental health. It makes you think your life is imperfect and everyone elses is squeaky clean and shining and happy with little sunbursts breaking into the frame. Suddenly your choices become bigger, more endless, and we find ourselves apparently choosing all these tiny steps that might just get us that perfect job and perfect house and perfect life that every else seems to have just nailed.
But that's not real choice. That's just marketing and manipulation and lies.
For me, it is the quieter style of yin yoga that helps me with choices. Yin sequences are a long, slow holds and mat-based shapes that stretch out the fascia and connective tissues whilst allowing stillness and an easing, rather than a muscular forcing, into the pose. Whilst more yang styles like vinyasa or ashtanga are incredibly beneficial for heart, spirit, mind and body, we need balance to be who we need to be. And yin allows us to really step into that stillness where we can listen to our inner beings, our heart centres.
To really have choice, one needs to come back to the heart centre, especially for the larger life choices. It's why I love this practice - a quieter yoga practice that asks you to make choices based on intuition - to listen to the core of our being, not our minds or all the noise around us. We settle into poses for delicious time - between three and five or even twenty minutes - after making small choices honestly:
is this pose right for me today?
is my ego pushing me into this shape or am I just at that edge where the magic happens?
what does my body need here?
do I need to modify the shape to suit my body, despite the shape I'm told to go in, because in a yin practice, that's what we're guided to do?
am I using this time to be in the complete present, or do I need this time to process the thoughts that are bubbling up within?
And in those meditative shapes, as the breath enters and leaves the body, we have time to consider our choices. For me, in the dimmed light of the studio with the rain hammering on the tin roof or in the warmth of day as the cockatoos screeching outside, I can have the time to listen to my most innermost self. Through pranyayama or breathwork, the body begins to calm, the brain begins to oxygenate and thus decisions become a little easier and wiser.
The questions too, become more philosophical and pertinent. What is really important to me? What would I really miss if it left me? Am I settling because I am scared? Am I fulfilled by doing this? What am I really passionate about? Am I listening to others more than I should? Is this what I really want? In a yin practice, it also becomes possible to witness the sensations arising in the body just as they turn into feelings, or observe the feelings as sensation in the body. Am I unhappy? Am I anxious? Am I afraid? Am I joyful? Am I prideful? Am I bored? And if I am any of these things, how are these sensations motivating me to make choices?
Ultimately, yin helps us practice acceptance. Whatever choices we have made, we can be at peace with where we are now. Sometimes the decisions we have made have brought us to the right place, however painful or uncomfortable they've been. By sitting in quiet and stillness, we can either come to a quiet and calm decision of where to go next, understand and learn from what we've done, or if we cannot, we can accept the moment as perfect just as it is.
This is a response to the @ecotrain QOTW, which asks us about choice. I wasn't sure I was going to have time or headspace to write this week, but after a beautiful yin session today, things became quieter, calmer and clearer - and I was revelling in the space I needed to make some choices in my life. May your week have these peaceful spaces in it, wherever you can find them.
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