We must choose our habits carefully, judging by the size of the self-help literature dedicated to the eradication of the bad, and the seeding of the good. As I try to play the guitar again, after a forty-year interval, my lower back and wrist discomfort signal that I may be practicing the “wrong” way, creating habits that will be hard to break, for no good outcome. The founder of the Alexander Technique, F.M. Alexander, came to his insights about how to release habitual tension from the body, through a heroic, 7-year struggle with laryngitis, interfering with earning his living as a Shakesperean actor in late 19th century Australia. With dedicated self-observation, he realised that he had an ingrained habit of tensing throat and shoulder muscles just before reciting, and he experimented with how to use awareness to lose this unnecessary tension.
The asanas (postures) should be steady and comfortable. They are mastered when all effort is relaxed and the mind is absorbed in the Infinite.
The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali (trans. Alastair Shearer)
The cultivation of awareness that is the essence of Yoga allows this same practice of releasing unnecessary tension, but perhaps with a more curiously accepting relationship with our habits. Thich Nhat Hanh invites us to drink “tea slowly and reverently, as if it is the axis on which the whole earth revolves…Only this actual moment (of mindfulness) is life.” In his beautiful book “Less”, Patrick Grant begins with a chapter on what makes him happy. It is a hymn to the sacredness of the everyday, treasured rituals and objects made meaningful by the love and care with which they were created, and the beloved, peopled places they come from. A tie, which had belonged to his father, “…will only tie one way. I can almost feel where his hands were when he tied it.”
Celebrate your unique familiar with fresh awareness in this Spring practice!