Inflexible Me: Expanding Past the Inflexible Barriers of the Body, Mind, and Soul by Nicole Frolick

Author:Nicole Frolick [Frolick, Nicole]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2016-04-11T18:30:00+00:00

9

The Support and Wisdom from Tree

The second day of training left me quite emotional. So much happened in such a short time span.

For some reason, I struggled throughout the morning practice more than the day before. I was having a bad day on the mat. I felt disconnected from my body, unable to move easily or maintain my balance postures. My frustration kept building, and by the time we moved into Tree Pose I had reached my limit. Tree Pose can be an easier balancing pose compared to most others, and it should’ve been the moment I was able to regroup myself and still my mind. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen. Instead of steadily holding myself up on one leg, I was continuously falling out of Tree. I couldn’t balance myself properly for the life of me. With each attempt to start again, I grew angrier and angrier at myself. I couldn’t accept such defeat with something I considered to be simple. My harsh attitude towards myself wasn’t helping my situation. I continually failed at holding the pose.

As I fell out of Tree for the last time, I became aware of myself and my angry energy. Taking a deep breath, I settled down and checked in. I wasn’t here to berate myself. I was here to nurture myself. I needed to shift my approach as I did that day with Mariel in the resting forward lunge. I needed to allow myself the space to keep falling without constant self-judgment. Interestingly enough, once I became okay with falling out of Tree, it stopped happening. I wasn’t resisting the fall any longer. I was allowing my body to do what it needed without judgment, and it responded by holding Tree Pose for the remaining time. I had settled my mind and entered the pose from my heart space. Moved by the immediate result from my awareness and shift in approach, the only thing falling now were a few tears from my eyes. How could I be so awful to myself and expect great miracles to occur?

To this day, Tree Pose is one of my favorite poses because of this moment. I never forget the reminder of falling out of Tree with grace. It’s never about how often you fall but how you choose to fall. Do you berate yourself over and over for not being able to hold a simple balance pose? The answer is of course not, but the reality is that we do. This isn’t exclusive to Tree but to all poses we find difficulty with. Tree just happens to be a common one. It’s something I witness with many inflexible people more often than not. We tend to be unkind to ourselves. We become frustrated with our inabilities, leading us to lose focus on our breath and ultimately lose the mind and body connection needed to remain present. If there’s one thing that Tree taught me, it’s to be kind to myself. My body had enough struggles to overcome, it didn’t need me to add any more to the plate.

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