Ricochet Rabbit Learns to Flow Like Water by Lauren Oktay

I know, curious title.

Let me explain…

Along with 11 other unshrinking souls, I’ve committed to practice 40 days of vinyasa yoga, meditation, and conscious eating.

Today is day 15. And I’m entering new territory.

The steady practice part is not an unknown. I’ve practiced 3 days a week, for years. And I have experience with meditation. And I’m also mindful, most of the time, of what and how I eat.

What’s new then?
It’s this hard-to-explain surrendering to, and accessing of a deeper energy. I mean, way-down-in-the-energy-well-deep.

I have oodles upon oodles of surface energy. Energy, that without some kind of outlet, starts looking (and feeling) high-strung, jumpy, and v-e-r-y restless.

Lack of movement transforms me into a less cute version of Sheriff “Bing-bing-bing!” Richochet rabbit. Bouncing off walls. (But without the redeeming heroics.)

And so, I find ways to move.

Typically, I arrive on my yoga mat brimming with copious, swirly-whirling, spiraling energy. And then, bounded by the borders of my mat, and open to the spaciousness in the studio, I flow, and ground, and surf my physical edge, long enough for the whirls to both dissipate and settle.

…that is until the swhirlies build up again.

I run on most days I don’t practice yoga. But still, the energy persistently rises, and spirals and hums.

I know I’m not alone here. And I’m positively certain there are lots of people who are born with a wired, restless energy that far, far exceeds mine. I imagine they are the human-mountain-goats who climb Mt. Everest, the ultra-marathoners who really can’t stop running, the explorers who are endlessly roaming and expanding their reach, the Olympians.

Maybe they are the dedicated meditators too.

Anyway, the point. Or the place this is going.
The part where the rabbit learns how to chill.

The type of yoga I do is very physically demanding. Like, #*&-kickingly so. And although I’ve practiced heavily during weekend retreats, I’ve never practiced days upon days in a row.

Every part of me is sore. Achingly, ow-ingly, sore. And my energy is settling. Or more like, past-tense, settled. And it’s staying that way between classes.

So, instead of arriving on my mat with superabundant surface energy to burn, my body feels quieter, steadier.

Every single pose feels foreign in some way or another.

I’ve figured out that resistance makes the edge of the poses harder. So I practice relaxing, and breathing, and finding space.

Every now and then, the instinct to struggle pops up and hijacks my attention, and again, I breathe through the opposition. I soften and lengthen, and then here’s the surprise, the “wall” gives. It moves and shifts.

I think what I’m doing (or not doing) is a kind of surrendering, a yielding. It’s most definitely not a crumpling or caving. Because a different energy is there — floating upward from a deeper source. Buoying me. Helping me stay.

And so I trust, and the “edge” of the pose moves, just like that. Gently, ease-ily, like water.

*Internal note to self: No bing-y bounding necessary to make stuff move.
And this has got me thinking…how many times do we come up against obstacles off of our mats, in our real-world lives and fight, freeze or flee?

Maybe we force and flail our way through a challenge, flinging ourselves into our future. Or we resist, holding on for dear-life, clinging to our past. Or maybe some us just run for the hills.

(Me? Flailer and flinger, more than I’d like to admit.)

Or, how many times do we just assume the situation will be the same as it was the day before? Our commute will suck, our kids won’t cooperate, the tasks ahead of us will be insurmountable, and that person at work will be the same old grump. So, we enter the situations in the same way as before. We don’t allow the space around our hearts for things to be different.

What would it be like to drop the way we always do things? To flow with what is happening now. To be like water, and press on with ease and grace — over, around, above, and through. I think they call it the path of least resistance. Or flowing downstream.
And I wonder, how can this experience be translated into life off-the-mat?

It would mean less internal freaking out when challenged. Not worrying so much about what’s next. Trusting that I’ve got what it takes. Less force, more grace. Dropping predictions and overly thought-out schemes. Allowing for fluidity and surprise.

And for all that to be possible, I’ll need to trust in that deep, buoying, fluent energy.

I’m not sure how this is going to go yet. Especially the allowing for fluidity and surprise part. That involves a whole lot of letting go. But I think this is the whole point of the 40 day challenge — to open us up to new ways of doing (or undoing) and being.

I’m curious — what is your experience with letting go of struggle? With graceful persistence? With dropping your certainty to make room for surprise?

Are you able as Rumi exhorts, to “feel the motions of tenderness around you, the buoyancy” ?

Tell me! I’d love to know!