On my recent travels, I was fortunate enough to spend 7 days on a yoga immersion with Tara Judelle, one of the founders of a school of yoga called Embodied Flow.
Embodied Flow offers a more fluid style of yoga than the traditional structured approaches, which teach the specifics of posture and body alignment. It’s a practice of deep inner listening and offering permission to your body to move in intuitive ways, tuning in to what it feels like it needs in any given moment. Whilst there is guidance offered, the ultimate guide is your inner wisdom and nothing is right or wrong in terms of how shapes look from the outside.
I love this style of practicing. It fosters a deep connection to self, to the interoceptive cues from the body and to the inner sources of wisdom. I find it leaves a softness, ease and fluidity in my physical body, which is mirrored in an openness and spaciousness in the mind. It’s a cornerstone of yoga teachings that the body and mind are not separate - how we are in the body is reflected in how we are in the mind (and vice versa).
This style of yoga highlights and celebrates the more feminine qualities of intuition, creativity and flow. It feels like a welcome counter-balance to the more masculine roots of yoga, which often focus on structure, discipline and form.
It got me thinking about flow more generally and what it means in my life.
What I notice in myself and in my work with others, is how often we are in resistance to what life brings. We see it on the yoga mat – when we grip and try to wrestle the body into shapes that might look good on Instagram, but don’t feel good in our soma. And we see it in life when we battle with various aspects of our reality on a daily basis and try to manipulate life into how we think it ought to be.
Right now, as I type these words, I’m in resistance to the ‘bad’ weather we are having in Auckland as a storm rages outside my window, rain lashes onto the glass and strong winds agitate my nervous system. I notice a story in my mind of judgement and dislike, and a preference for something different. And the story in my mind is reflected in my body – there’s tension in my hands and jaw as my body braces against what’s happening outside. This is a small example, but it plays out in many small and large ways throughout our lives. We move from ‘like’ to ‘dislike’, clinging and grasping to what we like, and bracing and resisting against what we dislike. Both create tension.
Yoga philosophy teaches us that this clinging and rejecting is a root cause of our suffering.
On the other hand, when we are in a state of flow, we have a flexibility and adaptability that allows us to move with whatever is happening. Like the flow of water in a stream that meets an obstacle in its path and finds a way to navigate around it, under it, over it, rather than stubbornly insisting ‘no, I’m going this way!’ We find ways to work with the immovable obstacles that life throws in our path – the train strike, delayed plane, the illness or injury, the decisions made by others that are out of our control. The losses, the failures, the rejections, as well as the joys and successes that come our way. We find where the spaces are, where there’s movement, where there’s possibility.
We flow with an emotion, allowing it to express and move though, rather than suppressing or avoiding. We flow with where our energy levels are on any given day, rather than pushing through, fighting against, or propping ourselves up with caffeine and sugar. We flow with the opportunities life presents to us, rather than endlessly bashing against doors that remain resolutely closed. We seek the glimmers of light, the growth, the ease, the openings.
On the yoga mat, we practice this by finding fluidity in the body, finding the ease in the tight places, finding where movement is possible, using breath and gentleness to ease our way through stuckness, stiffness or impasses. This prepares us to do the same off the mat. It prepares us to meet reality, to work with it, weave around it and find where the movement is, rather than resist it and fight against it with tooth and nail. Of course, there are some moments in life where fight energy is necessary, but often it is wasted energy, when we are fighting an immovable object and simply exhausting ourselves in the process. Like a river trying to argue with a boulder in its path.
You won’t find the non-human world wasting precious resources in this way. Plants and trees find creative ways to grow towards the light, water seeks and follows the path of least resistance, animals follow their instincts and do not get lost in stories of ‘it’s not fair’ or ‘I don’t want this’.
Neuropsychologist Rick Hanson describes the physiological changes in the body that happen when we say ‘yes’ to something – even if it’s not our preference - versus saying ‘no’. The nervous system down-regulates, and our heart rate, breathing and blood pressure tend to settle. It’s not the ‘hell yes’ of fake positivity, but a simple yes of acknowledging reality and accepting it as it is, that opens the doorway to find where the ease is.
As I left my 7-day yoga immersion, I tried to carry that feeling of flow with me into the various situations I faced – immigration queues at the airport, over-crowded trains, staying in other people’s houses. An attitude of flow doesn’t speed up the queue or get you to your connection any faster, but it generates less suffering along the way. It drains the battery less and enables us to see the bigger picture and open to possible options rather than getting tight, grippy and tunnel-vision around a problem.
I find it useful to check with myself at regular intervals ‘am I in flow, or am I in resistance?’ Awareness is the first step, and as soon as we notice that we’re in resistance, there’s an opportunity to experiment with something different. Like noticing where we are gripping or holding the breath, inviting softness into areas of muscle tension, allowing a full breath to arise, and resting into the back surface of the body. Then dropping stories of injustice, and trying on a simple ‘yes’ to what’s in front of us.
When the flow of water becomes blocked, it leads to stagnation. Yoga teaches that the same happens in the delicate eco-system of our body, and that this can be the beginning of disease patterns in the body and mind.
Resistance creates rigidity, brittleness and, ultimately, toxicity in the system. Flow is our natural healthy state.
Right now… what are you resisting in your life? And what would flow look like and feel like in this moment?
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I love this! Awareness is the first step, and I’ve been seeing several areas where I am experiencing resistance. It feels like just that awareness is inviting a flow state or at least a little more flowy. 🙃🧊🚰
I love your writing Vicki. Today’s words resonate with me as I struggle to let go of control in my life. 🙏