Dear Yogis,
Sometimes when I sit down in the morning to write to you, I have to hear in a different way. I have to trust the guys upstairs because their understanding is way different and way ahead of my understanding. There is quite a gap. Sometimes I think, “where are we going with this”, but I have to trust enough to keep going. To listen very intently. This morning is a case in point. They spoke about the inter-school cricket I played when I was in primary school. What’s that got to do with yoga I thought as I bumbled onwards? As it turns out – everything!
Have you ever played cricket? In my early years I wasn’t good at team sport – I couldn’t see the ball coming at me, and most of the sport we did involved a ball. I wasn’t even any good in the outfield where I felt abandoned in “space” and couldn’t see the team or the balls. As my sight improved and I began to see again (however badly) I found that I was a very, very good bowler in the game of cricket. I couldn’t yet see the ball well enough to actually hit it when it was coming at me with speed, but I could bowl amazingly well. So I did. I had found a game I could be good at, practised, and got even better.
I had my own little ways of holding the ball, doing the run up, bowling in ways that worked for me, and as long as the person about to hit it wasn’t used to my method, I could bowl them out… I got into the A Grade at school based on this and they assigned me a coach (just a parent perhaps) who was an awesome bowler. The first thing the coach needed to see was how I bowled, just to see what he was working with. What was the first thing he did? He changed my grip, then my run up! I got confused, frustrated, and my game went down the drain. I wanted to go back to the old way.
I was young. What I didn’t know in the beginning was sometimes you have to go backwards to go forwards. If you want to grow at anything FIRST you have to get into an uncomfortable place, trust the teacher, and practice the new way. You have to get uncomfortable, and practice the new way, not long for and hang onto the old way.. “Better” depends on purpose. If at the bottom of it you don’t care about anything other than people’s image of you, if it means nothing other than ego, then you will quit rather than go backwards.
If I am just bowling (doing/teaching yoga) to a closed group, just for the ego strokes, and I am not confident enough to get uncomfortable, make some wrong decisions, grow and change, at some point I will know I am faking it and drop the game, or I will make some less than honest decisions in order to keep in front of the group. This applies to anything, and is as relevant in the game of yoga, or the game of family, or the game of work.
The photo is of a new painting of the Medicine Buddha I am in the process of completing. Every time I sit in front of blank canvas, I have to be in the position of trust. I cannot do it on my own. Once I think it is all about me I am lost, and might as well put the painting in the bin, because it will be rubbish.
At various points along the way it looks as if nothing is happening, or feels like it is useless to keep going. If I got into my mind and only trusted that, I would get nowhere. I would quit.
What if BETTER is a foundation?
What if BETTER is coming through you?
What if BETTER is right in front of you, but because it is too challenging to allow BETTER into your life you don’t recognise it, and therefore you don’t receive it?
If you want to change your life, your mind must change first, and you can only do that with trust and with knowledge. Not just reading the morning messages, but acting on them, reading more, doing more. MEDITATING MORE. Remember, when you switch your grip in order to go forwards, in the beginning you may seem to go backwards. It’s OK. It’s necessary. Trust the process.
ENJOY THE SUNSHINE.
NAMASTE JAHNE