Pivot For Empowerment

Cool poses and svelte silhouettes. Perfectly executed handstands and influencer level Instagram followers. The right apparel and the right body. Such are some of the more widely perceived ideas of yoga practitioners today. It’s not that this is exactly wrong. Yoga can be about cool poses and having a highly toned, well-muscled body. And who doesn’t like a nice outfit? But to think that yoga is fundamentally about fancy clothes and flashy poses is to confuse the finger pointing at the moon for that ivory orb.

The physical postures of yoga are replete with benefits, physical and mental. But there is something much more subtle going on that asanas (poses) merely hint at. Namely, psychological flexibility and the cultivation of resilience and steadfastness. Just as important, the ability to differentiate pain from mere discomfort and tolerate the latter while reducing the former.

Unfortunately discomfort (physical, emotional, psychological) is inevitable in yoga practice. Learning to be with it and find a way through is an enormously helpful life skill. We can’t control the world around us but we can control how we respond to that world and this is crucial for empowerment. When you can pivot in place and harness your mental flexibility you are on the advanced track. It takes sustained practice over time.

Back to discomfort. It might take some time to show up, but at some point you’ll hit the wall and want to get out of a pose because that deep hip opener is somehow causing long suppressed feelings to resurface and you can feel tears welling up. Or maybe you start hating your yoga teacher as she makes you hold a lunge for what seems like forever and your thighs are screaming at you and fuck it I came to yoga to feel good not to deal with unresolved emotion. I know. Me too. Too bad. Are you going to get out of the pose because you can’t stand it or are you going to breathe a little more deeply and ride the wave to see what’s on the other side? I promise you it’s a worthwhile journey. Can be tricky though. A skillful teacher helps.

Then there’s psychological discomfort courtesy of your inner critic. You know, the one who sits on your shoulder and tells you you’re not good / thin / smart enough, you’re not worthy? Disempowering this demon is huge.

For many of us it’s the work of our lives, undoing decades of negative self-talk and destructive thought patterns. Because the inner saboteur is brutal, stealthy and relentless it takes vigilance and determination to stay on top of it. Slip ups are inevitable and compassion essential.

This kind of self-love is an application of ahimsa. Usually translated as ‘non-violence’ or ‘non-harming’ it is the first of the yamas and niyamas, the ethical guidelines of yoga. Often invoked in discussions of vegetarianism, ahimsa covers all of life, not least your relationship with yourself. If you’re like me, it probably won’t take long for you to recognise the subtle and not so subtle ways that you frequently violate ahimsa. One of the most pervasive ways is by strengthening your inner saboteur. Coming to see this is difficult and yoga practice is the perfect arena for so doing.

Every time you step onto your yoga mat you greet yourself. The mirror might be a little blurred at first but over time it becomes less so and the reflection gets clearer. You get to see your habitual tendencies, the way you always step back with your left foot and forward with your right. The way you round your shoulders and find it hard to really open in a backbend. The way you constantly compare yourself to others and talk mean to yourself: my practice isn’t perfect, my body is flawed, I’ll never be able to master the pose. It’s all right there on the mat and the longer you practice the more it shows up. Time yields clarity.

Much of what you see isn’t particularly problematic. Unless there’s some physiological reason for not stepping forward with your right foot and back with your left, no big deal. It’s the more subtle stuff that tricky. It’s insidious and frequently nasty. The voice that puts you down. That second guesses you and tells you you’re not good enough. Disempowering that voice is very advanced yoga. It’s much harder than putting your foot behind your head. I know that because I could put my foot behind my head the first time I tried. It’s taken me a lot longer to learn to think kind thoughts about myself.

Ignoring the tyrannical voice is an application of ahimsa. It may never actually go away but it can be transcended. Replacing thoughts that feel bad with ones that feel good is pratipaksha bhavana, one of the precepts of yoga outlined by Patanjali in his Yoga Sutras [Yoga Sutra II:36]. Practicing this form of self-love puts you squarely in the yoga tradition as a practical application of yoga philosophy. It also makes you a master in the art of pivoting, shifting your thoughts and your psychological stance so that you are more empowered and moving in the direction you want rather than getting bogged down in the negative.

When you get flooded with negative thoughts and the associated feelings in your body, it’s easy to get caught in a downward spiral that can feel unstoppable. This is where the physical practice hours you’ve logged on your yoga mat come in handy. Just as you stop doing a particular pose if you move from mere discomfort to pain, it’s up to you to intercept thought forms that cause pain and change course. This is easier said than done and just like holding an arm balance with your feet off the floor, no one else can do it for you. This sucks.

Changing your mind to change your life is the ultimate yoga. The ultimate self-empowerment practice – the art of pivoting. Mastery of this skill takes time and experience. Most of us weren’t adepts in our twenties and thirties. But now? Now, in our midlife, we’re better at responding to life and changing course. We’re less attached to my way or the highway. Better at recognising what’s not working and turning towards what is.

We are more mentally flexible, better able to shift perspective and regroup in the face of resistance and negativity. We’ve up levelled our life skills because we up levelled our thinking. We’re less rigid, less fixated on our version of how things should be. Life has given us plenty of opportunity. We’ve started to deeply grasp the fact that we can’t change the world but we can change our orientation towards it. We can change how we think and therefore change our lives. This is a very refined yoga practice. it’s not just harder than putting your foot behind your head, it’s harder than lying on your back with your foot behind your head. Trust me on that.

Dearbhla Kelly, M.A, May 2020.