“The asana begins the moment you want to come out of it.” (B.K.S. Iyengar)
That quote starts the chapter I am reading in “Perfectly Imperfect: The Art and Soul of Yoga Practice” by Baron Baptiste, who continues “…because that is when the creative work happens. We all have a default voice in our head that urges us to give up when the pose doesn’t look like we think it should, when we don’t get what we want or what we worked for, when it gets hard, when we fail. What do you do? Do you bolt? Or do you stay, adapt, breath, flow, and grow?”
I read these words after climbing the 332 meters to the top of a piece of granite jutting out of the Costa Blanca called Penyal d’Ifac. Historically it was known to the Phoenicians as the Northern Rock, to distinguish it from its southern counterpart, the Rock of Gibraltar. I have discovered the joy of reading a good book at the summit of a mountain, surrounded by only nature and open sky…and in this case, flocks of seagulls.
The words strike a chord with me. I realise that just the day before, I was struggling with where I am at. I recalled hearing my ‘default voice’ telling me the old stories of how I will always struggle with being on my own, that life will always be difficult. There is the fear that the business in my mind will never settle down…no matter how much mindfulness I practice. The thought that maybe everything I am doing is in vain. That, in the end, I will still just be the same me who started out on this journey.
In this moment however, sitting at the top of a mountain, still full of the exhilaration of reaching another summit, I am filled with a much greater sense of what life has to offer me. I feel more supported by life. Yes, I had to arrive at the base of the mountain and start walking up the path. I had to take each step which brought me here. but now, at the top, it is as if the mountain is holding me up and showing me that there is more possible than I thought. Here at the summit, it is as if my ‘default voice’ has less to bring to the conversation. A new voice is trying to make itself heard.
