Solid Fluidity

The work of effortlessness

I have been fortunate enough to develop a steady yoga practice in a welcoming community of acceptance and inclusion. I feel safe and free in the studios where I practice. Despite the occasional visitors who bring some of it in, there isn’t a feeling of judgment or comparison in the culture. There is only one instance I can remember when I couldn’t help but notice someone else’s practice during most of the class. It was a full class, and she was on the mat next to me. As we went through the flow, I couldn’t help but peripherally notice her lightness. She moved like water. Her feet and hands left and returned to the mat, over and over, without making a sound. In contrast, I felt like a bag of bones fighting with my own muscles, slipping in my sweat on the mat beneath me. She felt like one piece. It made me feel like many separate pieces trying to move at the same time.

For that hour, I listened to the teacher enough to know which postures to take next. The other 75% of my attention was taking mental notes from this fluid, yet airy, yet shockingly strong yogi fairy to my right. She made it seem so easy. She wasn’t being showy. If anything, she seemed organic. I didn’t even know her, and I knew she was in her element. I considered how many years of practice it would take for my practice to feel like that.

As I recall this memory, I realize she did indeed exude more of a feeling than anything I could see with my eyes. I know this because I intentionally never looked directly at her. I sensed her movements in my peripheral vision. I was still quite new and shy in classes then, so unfortunately I didn’t even look at her face to say hi after class (oh, how things have changed since then).

I didn’t see her. I don’t know who she is. And yet, I will never forget her.

The epiphany I had that day likely resulted from a mixture of two things: her humble (hence beautiful), silent practice and my readiness to see the reality of it. I couldn’t know her journey leading up to that class or how she came to move like that. What I did know is that it was possible in me too if I committed to the work. Whether she was born with it or worked hard over years to get there, I know my path would have to be the latter. Sure, there is a possibility I was born with it too. If that’s the case, then I took a long road somewhere else that battered me up and turned me into a bag of drunken bones and squishy sacs that were supposed to be muscles. I built up a lot of toxins over the years. To release them, I had to be repeatedly squeezed out, like a lemon, first in AA, and then a little more literally in hot yoga classes.

I have been practicing yoga regularly for three years, in a studio for 2 1/2. I am just now finding some fluidity in my practice. As many of you know, I also became a certified yoga instructor earlier this year. My first six months of teaching has been a wild ride. In the classes I taught this week, I brought in this concept of fluidity with the students. I talked about how the flow comes easily only once a strong foundation has been laid and an anchored center established. In one class I went on to mention how we can observe water and see how light and flowing it is- in the ocean waves, for example. Yet if you’ve ever been caught in an undertow, you know how incredibly strong water is.

I recently listened to an interview with Shia LaBeouf on Jon Bernthal’s YouTube channel called "REAL ONES". I haven’t watched anything else on that channel yet, but this one interview had me hooked. Shia reminded me where I have come from. I identified with him and the work he’s had to do to come back to himself and his participation in the life he’s been given. Even in the face of extremely difficult questions, he maintains a peaceful, centered confidence. He exudes strength and integrity, which I believe are a direct result of taking responsibility for his life and every personal choice and action that brought him to this point. I have had to do the same over the last five years. I agree with him that some amends are ones that I will be living the rest of this human life. I haven’t finished the whole interview yet. From what I listened to so far, I was left with gratitude that I have the type of grit I see in Shia. I can credit a lot of my vast capacity for love, fear, grace, grief, joy, and pain to my experiences. The beauty of where I am today would not exist without the darkness I have traversed. If I took away any one mistake, I wouldn’t be writing this. The same goes for if that mistake remained, but if I didn’t take full responsibility for it. It would still be lurking beneath the surface contorting me until I confronted it.

I have found some ease. I am moving more effortlessly through my good days. I am taking lighter steps through my hard days. I am not giving various pieces of myself to different people. I am one piece wherever I go. That feels good.

Things are flowing easier now. It is so much easier than I ever imagined, and the cost was commitment to the hardest work I have ever done. I would (and likely will) go through the difficult work all over again to find this sense of being in my element.

It is belonging.

It is wholeness.

It is solid.

It is fluid.

It is effortless.

It is born from a quest.

One might think I’m sharing about this as some sort of destination I’ve reached.

It is both that and its opposite.

It’s yet another beginning.

I’m glad you’re here with me, even as I float in mid-air between an end and a beginning. I think of a quote from a book I love:

What if we could trust life like we trust the breath? What if we could take in all the nourishment of the moment and then let it go fully, trusting that more nourishment will come?

Much like the moment when the breath is completely exhaled, the trapeze artist has a moment when they are suspended in mid-air. My understanding is that they have to let go of one bar and wait in mid-air for the next swinging bar to reach them. If they hold on to the current bar, or reach for the next bar, their timing will be off and they will fall. Instead, they must let go fully to be ready for the bar swinging towards them, trusting the timing of the swing and not their own effort to reach.

-The Yamas & Niyamas - Exploring Yoga’s Ethical Practice by Deborah Adele

And there it is again, the challenge of the effortless state.

In addition to this learning from the trapeze artist, I also put into practice another lesson from a biblical character named Peter. If you don’t know it, you can just google Peter walking on water.

I think of Peter as I walk an unknown path toward what it is that beckons me most.

I think of the trapeze artist as I feel like I am suspended in air.

I listen to both and find a common message:

Don’t look down!

Photo by Tim Marshall on Unsplash