The Beauty of Simple

I am a recovering black thumb. Having lived in apartments and condos as an adult, I’ve never had a garden of my own and houseplants would wither at the sight of me. But, with some sustained effort and patience over the last few years, I now have several houseplants that brighten up my space and clean the air around me.

So, when I woke up one morning to a tiny leaf sprouting on one of them, I was overjoyed. A smile was plastered on my face the rest of the day. Now, as I sip my morning coffee, I check in on that little leaf and my heart warms watching it grow.

It’s such a simple joy. 

Which got me thinking – not only about joy, but about the depth within simplicity.  That tiny green leaf looks simple, but everything happening beneath the surface to make it possible isn’t.  

A Simple Practice

As I’ve settled into YCW’s Trauma-Sensitive Yoga series the past few weeks, I feel a little like that leaf.  

Jennifer guides us through a gentle practice that may look “simple” on the surface. We move through fewer poses and repeat many of them weekly. There is a calm and open atmosphere – even online – that we are invited to explore our experience in. What Jennifer ultimately helps us create in each class is space. Space to check in with the body, to feel our sensations, and to choose when to stay, adjust, or step out. 

Inherent in this practice, as Jennifer tells us, is choice and noticing.

On the outside, I may simply look like I’m in wall stretch. On the inside, a quiet complexity is unfolding. Sensations are shifting, thoughts are arising, emotions are moving through me. I leave each practice a little different, even if I can’t name it yet. There’s a certain kind of contentment in that.

Bringing Simple into Every Day

In my own practice and teaching lately, simplicity has been a theme. Slowing down and anchoring into one body action at a time. 

Shaking my right arm out and feeling those sensations. Then the left. Shaking out the right leg and letting it ripple through my body. Then the left. People in my classes have laughed like we’re doing the hokey pokey. 

Maybe we are.

There’s something beautifully simple about reconnecting to a childlike perspective. Observing our body with curiousity rather than expectation. What could we find if we approached our practice again with a beginner’s mind? 

Take a Moment of Simplicity 

Wherever you are reading this – sitting down, lying down, standing up – bring your attention into your feet. 

Breathe in. 

Breathe out. 

Wiggle your toes. 

What shifts, even slightly, in the rest of your body? What thoughts or sensations flow in?

Wiggling my toes is something I often do. While I’m standing in line at the grocery store, stopped at a red light, reading on my couch, or waking up my body after savasana. It’s a simple practice, but it brings me right back into my body, onto the earth, and into the moment. 

Just like the little leaf on my houseplant, growing up from the roots, we can grow too. Little by little, practice by practice. 

Imagine what we could nourish this Spring with a little simplicity.

A Springtime Invitation to Renew

Teachings come

from everywhere when you open

yourself to them. That’s the trick of

it, really. Open yourself to everything,

and everything opens itself to you.

Richard Wagamese in Embers: One Ojibway’s Meditations

Spring in Winnipeg

As Spring slowly finds its way into Winnipeg, I can’t help but notice a little bit of opening everywhere I look. Melting snow and ice reveals patches of sidewalk and grass, my shoulders come away from my ears allowing my neck to feel the breeze without a scarf, and even the potholes keep my eyes wide open while I drive. 

There’s a feeling of emerging in my neighbourhood too. There are more dog walkers on longer walks. A neighbour in my building recently offered up some of her houseplants to go to new homes. We’re all warming up, coming out of hibernation, ready to renew our relationships with each other and the outdoors.

And so, Richard Wagamese’s words feel like a beautiful invitation for Springtime. What can we open up to? And what teachings will come when we do?

A yoga renewal

I recently began teaching a chair yoga class and while I initially wondered how it might limit what we could do, it’s actually opened up a new aspect of my practice and teaching.

Triangle pose has long been difficult for me. I often focus on the actions in my feet and legs, losing attention to my chest and neck. Then I tried triangle seated in a chair and taught it to my class. 

When I did, my focus naturally moved up my body. With my lower body supported, I noticed a freedom in my chest and neck. I experienced the feeling of the air between my fingertips as we lengthened our side bend a little more and found an open twist in the pose. It was like a whole new triangle-shaped world. 

When we then moved to utthita hasta padangusthasana B with one foot on a chair seat, I felt the similarity to the triangle shape in my body rather than simply intellectually knowing their similar structures. Further still, when I practiced my usual standing triangle pose in my vinyasa class, I felt my whole body engage. The usual focus on my legs had broadened and the pose felt like new. All because I tried triangle in a chair. I opened myself up to something different and, like Richard Wagamese said, a teaching came. 

An invitation to open

It’s an often-repeated idea that small changes add up to big differences. In a recent conversation with a nutritionist, she advised that the only changes she would encourage me to make right now were to drink more water and take a multivitamin.

“That’s it?” I asked her.

“That’s it.” 

She wanted to see the difference first of these tiny changes before making any bigger ones. The same principle is what organically appeared in my practice of triangle pose by simply trying it sitting down. This small change rippled through the rest of my practice, reminding me how openness can renew our spring yoga classes in unexpected ways.  

Renewing our yoga practice

On the mat, that can be as simple as trying a pose in a different way. Whether it’s a wall stretch in place of a downward dog or focusing on the feeling of the fingertips as you move from Warrior I to Warrior II.  

Perhaps it’s trying a different kind of class. If you gravitate towards flow, try Kaiut or Yin. If you enjoy the quietness of Relax and Restore, perhaps try the gentle flow of Kripalu. Move through a few seated poses while you watch television or listen to a podcast. Practice in the morning instead of the evening or welcome the Springtime in through the Spring Sadhana.

If we look around, there are endless ways to open ourselves to everything. Both on our mat and off of it.

How are you opening this season?

Making Peace with Transitions

My dog, Alfie, hates transitions. While he loves being on a walk, getting out the door involves running under the bed first. He loves playing at doggie daycare but shakes in my arms between the car and its entrance. Sometimes I wonder if he picked up this dislike from me. Because I too, find transitions difficult. I want to skip to the end rather than sit in the in-between; I want to arrive in Summer and breeze right through the messy parts of Spring.

Knowing this, I found myself wondering how (or if) my discomfort with transitions shows up on my yoga mat and how I could learn to work with that discomfort.

What I noticed is that I’m always interested in getting to the next pose, not in all the little movements that get me there. Half the time, they’re so habitual, I don’t even see them. I simply arrive in the forward bend from downward dog with no idea how my feet went from one to the other. Like the autopilot of driving the same route every day, portions of my yoga practice were missing my attention.

As we journey from one season to the next with the Spring Equinox, it seems the right time to slow down and notice the in-between. Instead of letting Spring be a blur, I want to bring it back into focus. 

A Lesson from Winnie the Pooh

I recently read A Walk in the Wood: Meditations on Mindfulness with a Bear Named Pooh by Dr. Joseph Parent and Nancy Parent and found myself struck particularly by a story of Pooh walking in the woods with no destination. 

In the book, the authors explore mindfulness using stories of Winnie and his friends. In this one, the idea of “aimless wandering” is introduced. Pooh goes on a walk in the woods for no reason other than to “just notice.” He’s not trying to get somewhere; he’s firmly planting himself in the transition between places. He has no other goal aside from being aware of what’s around him. Being present as he takes each step and embracing the moments between each one with openness and a sense of joy. 

It seemed deceptively simple when I read it. Until I tried to do a mindfulness walk and got caught up in how to be both mindful and aimless. As a result, I did neither. So, I came to my mat to explore these ideas and practice them. 

“Aimlessly wandering” on the mat

Mindfully moving between poses and aimlessly wandering through my practice seemed to be in conflict at first. Isn’t mindfulness about presence and intention? How can that come together with aimlessness? 

That, I realized, is the practice.

When I dig below the surface of my dislike of transitions, it is partly about a lack of control. Springtime can be chaotic: the weather can be unruly, green bursts out wherever it can, melting snow means messy streets. Transitions in life can be the same. Each day can become unpredictable and it’s difficult to avoid making a mess before the roots of something new take hold. 

When I move from downward dog to uttanasana, it might not be fluid or smooth. It might take a few steps, maybe my knees need to stay bent, or maybe I stepped with my left foot first instead of my right and now I’m off kilter. 

Instead of closing my eyes and rushing through these moments, I can slow down and embrace them instead.

Making friends with transitions

I can intentionally notice the steps from downward dog to uttanasana, the turning of the toes from 5-pointed star to Warrior II, or the step back into a lunge. I can “aimlessly wander” by trusting that I will move into the next pose and focus instead on all the moments and actions that get me there. 

The sensations in the feet, the coolness of breath, the changes in my body as it rearranges itself. The practice will unfold and I can be fully present as it does, allowing myself to wander to its end by noticing all the spaces in between.

Off my mat, I can practice taking mindful walks like Pooh and engage with the changing season around me. I can notice my breath as I sit at a stop sign or red light, perhaps relaxing my fingers if they’re gripping the wheel. I can stop before I answer a text and feel the weight of the phone in my hands and its smooth glass surface.

By bringing these mindfully aimless moments into my life, maybe – just maybe – I can begin to make friends with transitions. Perhaps Alfie will too. 

How do you embrace transitions?

When Getting on the Mat Feels Hard

A mantra and an invitation

 

“Move the body, the mind will follow."

 

This phrase has become an oft-repeated mantra since I was a child. My mum and I first heard it from a priest and while I don't recall how it connected to his sermon, we took the sentiment home with us. As a moody teen, my mum would repeat it to me when I'd try to weasel out of a get-together with friends or a bike ride we'd planned on. 

 

When she did, I'd purse my lips in protest, but ultimately, I'd give it a shot. Because implicit in its meaning is that it’s an invitation, not a command.

 

Just try. No expectations.

 

Arrive at the get-together or commit to five minutes of bike riding. If your mind hasn't caught up by then, then give yourself permission to stop. Excuse yourself from your friends. Turn the bike around. But most of the time, being out with friends or moving my body was exactly what I needed. 

 

And so, I've found this little adage to be a gentle friend ever since.

 

Feeling frozen in February

 

In the cold days of February, when the mornings haven't quite lightened yet and my new year intentions may be shaky, this mantra never fails to bubble up again and again. 

 

Just the other week I lamented to myself that I didn't want to get on my mat and I also didn't want to go to the sewing class I'd recently started. I know that yoga helps me feel good in my body. And I was so excited when I'd signed up for sewing class. So, what gives?

 

"Move the body, the mind will follow."

 

Sometimes when the thought comes to me, I still glare at it - the moody teenager lives inside me forever - but I always invite myself to try. Start with five minutes of movement. Get myself ready for sewing class. Then see if my mind follows, without expectation of the result. 

 

Like the role of the observer we cultivate in yoga, let the next few moments be an open exploration of what comes up.

 

When the mind follows

 

When I take the invitation to try, I keep it simple. Spend 10 minutes on the mat. Do a yoga snack. Or simply get in the car before deciding if I'll go to class. Most times, this is enough to get my mind to follow my body's lead.

 

When it does, I try to take a moment to offer myself gratitude for taking the first step. I also notice how things feel afterwards. Maybe my mind feels calmer or my body feels more energized. This pause (when I remember to do it!) encourages me to continue to answer my mantra's nudge next time. 

 

There are days though, when my mind stays put despite moving my body.

 

When the mind doesn't follow

 

I may have tried some sun salutes and my mind is still aching to be on my couch. I got into the car for sewing class, but I can't bring myself to start the engine. Before I default to calling it a day, I pause and sink into the moment. With an observer's mind, I ask myself, "What do I need right now?" and listen for what comes up. 

 

In some cases, skipping class isn't what my mind is really asking for. It might be that it needs restoration. Or it needs quiet, but not solitude. My yoga practice can meet me here too. 

 

This is when unwinding with others in a Relax and Restore class or finding peace in a Yoga Nidra workshop become intentional opportunities to support myself. Almost like I'm going on a mini-retreat that's only a few minutes from home (or even in my living room!). In this way, the practice doesn't end when my mind doesn't follow, it simply explores a different part of the path.

 

A practice of love

 

What I've ultimately learned from the many years that "move the body, the mind will follow" has whispered into my ear is that it's a chance to pause and reflect. It encourages me to ask myself what I really need and give myself space to answer. 

 

And each time, I build a little more self-love. I'm following through on a commitment to myself, whether it's getting on my yoga mat or making it to my sewing class. Even if I didn't physically make it to class, I tried for a few minutes. That is still showing up for myself. And it sets the stage for me to do it next time too. 

 

This childhood mantra that irked me as a teen has ultimately evolved into a loving way to check in with myself and continue to learn all that yoga has to teach me. I hope it's helpful for you too. 

 

What's a five-minute invitation you can give yourself today?