As I was practicing yoga in my living room the other day, the instructor’s words suddenly rang out to me. “Notice if you’re kind of waiting for it to end,” she said throughout the practice. Her words resonated with me, not because I was eager for the pose in question to be over, but because it was my posture towards the latest wave of grief. I have been distracting myself, looking beyond the horizon of this one year mark and just waiting for it to pass. And that isn’t the worst possible thing. Sometimes it is all we can do. But this prompt raised something within me, and prompted me to consider that it might be worth asking myself the question, and seeing if there might be a small shift I could make, a slight adjustment to my attentiveness or my posture that might make all the difference.
The instructor asked these follow up questions: “Where can I soften? Where can I add stability or support?” Both feel deeply relevant to the moment that I find myself in. I have been practicing softening around my big emotions instead of resisting them or pushing them away, or even answering them with other big feelings in order to try to resist or change them. These simple questions felt like a nudge, a reminder that there are avenues available to me that are more nuanced than simply gritting it out on my own.
I don’t know if God was speaking to me through my yoga practice, or if the deep work that God has been doing within me simply trained me to notice and pay attention when something connected with my experience. Maybe those are the same thing. Either way, it felt like an invitation, one that I could practice in my body in that moment, but one that I could also bring with me into the other spaces of my life. I find myself asking these questions when a wave of tough emotion hits, or when I am working on something challenging or stressful. These questions both slow me down and open me up.
The question “where can I soften?” gives me an opportunity to slow down, to look again at where I find myself, and to consider a subtle shift. It invites me to look at the subtle interface between my experience and my response and see if there might be more space for gentleness. There usually is. This often feels like a simple way to show kindness to myself, as well as an echo and a reflection of my belovedness in the eyes of the Divine. How can I show myself just a bit more of the care and attention that God would love to show me? How can I approach my emotions, my body, my thoughts, with some of the attentiveness, curiosity, and kindness that Jesus might show me?
The question “where can I add stability or support?” opens me to others. It invites me to turn to prayer, and notice where the God who gathers us like a mother bird under her sheltering wings might already be present with comfort, tenderness, and provision. It also invites me to turn to others, and wonder for a moment if perhaps I don’t need to do this alone. Sometimes that simple knowledge is enough, that moment when I pause and take in the reality of the community that I am woven into. But most of the time, it means vulnerably reaching out, sharing what I am feeling, and asking for what I need. It still feels surprising to me sometimes that this works. It is so easy to go on autopilot and try to muscle through on my own when the reality is that I don’t need to.
I will confess that I still spend more time than I’d like just waiting for the intense moments to pass, and I think I can offer myself a lot of grace there. For me, it is often enough to know that there are small movements that I can make, even if I opt not to in a given moment. These words are a grace to me, even when I do not choose to use their gifts. They are new words in the language of gentleness that God is teaching me. I hope they land softly with you, too.
Wellspring 