Multi-tasking - how's that working for you?
“If it feels good, you are doing it right. If it hurts, you are doing it wrong.” – Ricky Tran
Seriously? Is it really as simple as that?
Actually, yes, it is that simple. Several Yoga Westies and yogis from around the city spent the better part of 3 days with Ricky Tran recently. Ricky Tran began his transformation through yoga in 2005, so yes; he has been doing yoga for less time than I have been teaching yoga. And I feel quite safe saying that there were only a handful of people in the room who were younger than Ricky. But Ricky is the real deal. He totally gets it. He gets it better than most of us, who have been doing yoga twice as long, or longer. He offered 8 separate sessions, ranging from lectures on the sutras to kick-your-butt asana classes. But regardless of the topic we were exploring, or the ridiculousness of the asana we were attempting, the message was the same: “If it feels good, you are doing it right. If it hurts, you are doing it wrong.” Think about that next time you are trying to stand on your head or twist yourself into a pretzel or balance on one hand!
Patanjali’s yoga sutra 2.46 says, “stira sukha asanam.” Practice poses with steadiness and ease. Stira is the steadiness, focus, concentration and an attentive mind. Sukha is happiness, comfort and ease. Patanjali was referring here specifically to seated poses for learning or meditating, but the objective is the same for all of our poses. We want to strive for the balance, that “happy place” between effort and ease. Steady your mind, your body and your breath, and then allow the pose to unfold and reveal itself to you. Have you had this experience in a pose? When you can allow your mind to clear of the chatter and distractions, and can move, without judgments or expectations into a pose, whatever it looks like for you, and it FEELS right, you experience a moment or two, maybe even several breaths, of complete ease in the pose. That AHA moment. The body is strong, but soft, the mind is clear, and the breath is full and complete. You are doing it right!
Part of the beauty of our yoga practice is that we can take the lessons that we learn on our mat into our daily lives as well. Frankly, that is where the real transformation is in the practice. Stira sukha. Steadiness and ease. Do you have a sense of steadiness and ease in your life right now?
It has been said that May is the new December. That is absolutely the case in my life right now! This is time of year when I totally feel like I am on the crazy train…it has barreled out of the station and is heading right off the tracks. Late April and May are busier than Christmas, with the intersection of end of year school activities, beginning of summer activities, etc. I don’t know from one minute to the next whether I am coming or going. And who is supposed to be where? And do they have to eat first? Know what I am talking about? Sure, you do. Maybe, if we applied the principle of stira sukha to the rest of our lives, in addition to our poses, we could at least put that crazy train back on the tracks, even if we can’t get it to stop.
What is the task at hand? A business deal? A baseball game? Getting dinner on the table? Carpooling 3 people to 3 different places all at the same time? Set your awareness, and be steady about your focus. Stira. Then move with clarity to completion of the task, without allowing your self to become distracted, or participate in a bunch of judgments about what you should be doing instead. Sukha. There, that feels better, doesn’t it? If it feels right, you are doing it right.
Research has shown that while we think we are accomplishing a long list of tasks, our brains actually are not capable of multi-tasking. We cannot think about or put our awareness on more than one thing at a time. So when we are running around trying to furiously check items off of our to do list, our brains are actually moving from one thing to another, then another, then another. This makes us tired, and stressed, and frankly unproductive. If we would focus on one task at a time, follow it to completion, and then movie on to the next, we probably would get a lot more done. And we would feel so much better. This is where the stira and sukha come in, right? Steadiness and ease. One thing at a time. That just feels right, doesn’t it?
