Easy Peasy

My yoga instructor offered us a choice. 

“I have two possible classes,” she said. “One is easy peasy and the other will build strength. What do you all feel like?”

The group froze. Two choices! We looked at each other. We were silent.

We didn’t want to pick the wrong one.

How do we know what everyone else wants?

I chose in my mind: Easy peasy!

(I did tear a hip flexor in the prior week’s class.)

But I kept quiet. There were young people and some limber-looking men there. What if they all wanted a challenge?

One of them said, “How about a combo?”

“Well,” said the teacher. “I'm on spring break this week, even though it doesn't feel like spring. And I'm feeling easy peasy today. So, I'll go mostly in that direction.” 

Phew, I thought. 

In another class the week before, I was in a deep lunge when my right hip joint popped and I felt a rip in my upper quad. 

Ouch.

It's ironic, right? 

You’re not supposed to get hurt in yoga. 

You go there to heal.

But it's interesting how often we choose the challenging option—the striving, achieving, tough, strength-building path. 

I like that route.

I like to push myself.

But to go beyond—that’s another story. 

The body will find its limit.

And two of my top strengths are Achiever and Strategic. So, I can get super strategic about achieving.

But I was surprised to realize years ago that these values around striving and productivity came from colonialism. That concepts of hard work, perfectionism, productivity, and the sense of urgency related to all of that are historically tied to race.  

It makes sense though—to make it in a capitalist society, we believe we have to push toward productivity—pushing others and ourselves.

But my yoga teacher asked us to consider as we thought about how to dedicate our practice for that day, “Do you want to strive for something external or do you want to focus on nurturing within?”

Nurturing within! 

That's a relatively new choice for me. 

It feels so good to now and then say, “Maybe this is as far as I need to go today!” 

In this yoga class, I didn’t stretch as far. When she offered the full expression of pigeon, I said no. When she said we could use a block to provide support our hip, I said yes. When she said, “There’s time for one more posture before Savasana if you want to do something else,” I didn’t choose headstand or shoulder stand. 

Or to do anything other than putting on my socks and my sweatshirt for our final relaxation.

I know I can choose a quieter, more nurturing path. 

I can ease into it.

Maybe I’ll sit and read a book for an hour. 

Or spend time chatting with a friend rather than making that PowerPoint.

Maybe I’ll watch reruns of NCIS later. My computer was just shipped to me wiped clean from a warranty department because I had spilled coffee on it, and it stopped working. So it needs to be reconfigured.

Perhaps the coffee spill was a hint. I now have a blank slate in my laptop.

What striving can you let go of? Where might you choose nurturing within instead of striving for an external goal? 

Where might easy-peasy meet you on your path?

Rumi wrote, “Stop hunting. Step on this net.”

Step on this net. You might find some joy there.

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