Less is More

The full moon is a considered to be an auspicious time to let go. Not that you necessarily need a calendar date to do that but if her brighter force is having an adverse effect on your emotions or outlook; especially under the current Hunter Moon, then consider it an opportunity to reflect on what aspects of your life or your yoga practice you wouldn't miss.

When we make the effort to find a few moments to do this we not only shed the burden of those elements which we just know aren't working but we also get a chance to seek out and review what we are perhaps unconsciously clinging to or pursuing. It's often those things that clutter up our minds, stop us sleeping or even breathing fully. So if the pursuit of a specific goal is constricting your potential to see clearly, to feel viscerally the rest of your life then just take a step back.

The Bhagavad Gita, one of the ancient vedic texts offers a little advice:

"The wise man let's go of all results, whether good or bad

and is focused on the action alone.

Yoga is skill in action."

(Bhagavad Gita, translation by Stephen Mitchell, chapter 2, 48:52)

Relinquishing our grip on the goal does a number of things: it removes the suffering we experience when things don't go our way; it stops us falling prey to our ego when things do; it moves our focus away from the finish point and plants it into each step of the process - each action we need to take to get to where we want to be. Inevitably it also helps us realise that so much of what happens is outside of our control anyway. Accepting and surrendering to those aspects allows us to flow more easily through life, not overly worrying about obstacles and hiccups before we encounter them and so not derailing our plans before we even start.

The skill then is to strive less for an outcome and by so doing we will naturally find it easier to focus more closely on each step. In our practice this might be greater awareness of the position of a body part in relation to another or realising where we are holding tension or not engaging a muscle group. Interpreting cues more efficiently is a skill in itself as it realising that we may actually need to develop the strength or flexibility we lack by practising other asana first. In life it's the same. Maybe the CV needs refining before we send it off or perhaps the job we're applying for isn't right, right now? And if that difficult relationship feels like a tangle of knots around your heart then perhaps simply hitting pause and listening clearly to the other person without reacting can open up some insight into how to find more peace and harmony.