I haven't posted in awhile. Life has been a whirlwind filled with broken refrigerators, long walks, lots of work and plenty more universal mood swings.
I contemplated planning a fun little post on corporate speech and its attempt to hide insecurity. And I definitely will run that post up the flagpole soon. But today, sitting on a rock on Niles Beach, I did a pretty deep meditation on being grounded.
In Anusara yoga, class begins with a meditation. And almost always, one of the first instructions out of the teacher's mouth is, "Take a comfortable seat." Superficially, it means exactly what it says: sit in a way you can sustain without movement for a few moments. But I think it actually means something deeper.When I'm feeling insecure or anxious, I sit on the edge of my seat. I fidget. I ants. I pants. My legs twitch - jumping up off the ground again and again and again and again.
When I "take a comfortable seat," I open my legs and hips wide (attempting full lotus) and let my weight settle into my root. I literally can feel the Earth against the base of my spine. It's a posture that invites stillness. And yet, somehow, you can also feel the pulse of nature, the ebb and flow of tides, the sway of the breeze. You could call it an "active rest."
I've been feeling more "edge" and less "comfortable" in my seat these days. On top of the overarching job insecurity- to be redundant or not redundant, that is the question - there has been a more specific insecurity about the most recent project. And although I wish it weren't so, my job informs my self-view. So I'm left feeling a tad ... off kilter.
I've tried to do more "grounding" yoga poses to counteract this emotion. Unfortunately, I've also resorted to slightly ... less healthy ... methods. The combination of which seems to be working to more or less degrees. We shall see. Still, I feel like maybe recognizing the problem is at least part of the solution.
What can only - ultimately - help is time and resolution of all these survival mode circumstances. Here's hoping there's a positive (read, stable and grounded) resolution.
