Box Pose

It’s my nemeses.  I dread it. It’s always been hard but the last four years it has been excruciatingly painful reaching into places far beyond my hips. My first memory of almost incomparable pain was deep in the heart of the pandemic in yin yoga class.

My yoga teacher would say things like  - find your edge, learn to sit with the pain . . .  my mind would fight back  - saying “I’m actually sitting with a lot of pain every day!” 

My business was dying and there was nothing I could do, even though I tried everything and anything I could think of - from dancing all over the Internet to cutting overhead and paying for inventory out of pocket. My business survived, and that is all.

 And now four years later it is functioning at exactly the level as it did during the pandemic, which is not sustainable. 

Ironically my box pose has gotten better physically - because I practice it every week; it still hurts but I am learning to focus less on the physical pain, and instead focus on breathing, and acceptance. In doing so, I understand the pain as part of the process of change.  But the pain sensation is not rooted in my flesh and bones; it is rooted in my thinking.

Change hurts because it’s personal. Years ago, in 2011, I was going through a difficult personal battle. I couldn’t believe how much it hurt.  And I didn’t understand why I couldn’t just put it behind me and go on. A wise woman told me - we cannot go around pain and discomfort, we have to go through it. 

Box pose teaches me every week to balance effort and ease, to hold on and let go. It’s normal to feel pain in change, and even though my body and mind knows this, my heart does not.  

During the pandemic, someone asked me why I didn’t just close.  I said because that would be even sadder than trying to keep it alive.  I believed there was a light at the end of the tunnel, that this too would pass, and life would go back to normal and my business would be there to help. 

But time has revealed that we cannot go back.  That we never will.  It’s humbling to admit that moving forward in this new world is a complete unknown to me.  I don’t know how to help my business grow and I don’t know how to close it because both sides require engagement. 

It’s ok to be a little lost. Knowing what we don’t know is the beginning of knowing.  Like box pose, the sensation of pain tells me to lean into understanding how to let go. It’s a process.  Inevitably, shift is happening. 

Thanks for reading.

Lynn

“There’s a crack - that’s how the light gets in”

- Leonard Cohen