The Moment of Surrender

Recently I attended a Traditional Hot Yoga or Bikram Yoga Class. This class consists of 26 traditional postures, 2 breathing exercises and in between, many little Shavasana’s. A Shavasana is a beautiful resting posture that offers us time to look inward and truly experience what is happening in both our mind and our bodies. In a Bikram class as we work through many intense movements in a room that is kept at approximately 105 F, we will stop to take our mini Shavasana, with the intention of finding rest in a moment that was immediately proceeded by work.

The purpose of these little Shavasana’s is not only to rest our bodies but to train our minds to surrender to calm in the most of chaotic of moments in our lives. That’s powerful stuff!! So how do we bring our minds to rest during periods of stress and chaos in our lives? I don’t know about you, but I can’t turn off my brain and all of its busy work, and I don’t believe that there is much point in trying. For our minds to truly find rest it is not about turning off our thoughts, it’s about not reacting to the thoughts that arise.

When we are in the depth of a challenging time in our life we tend to let our minds constantly linger in the future and miss everything that is happening in the present moment. We are trying to uncover every possibility before any actually occur. We try to find answers to questions that have yet to be asked and the reason we do this is because we deceive ourselves into believing that we have control over every aspect of our lives, well we don’t…

What a relief. If we had control over every aspect of our lives it would mean that we were responsible for every person and situation that we ever encountered and we know that is simply not the case. The only control we have is over our own actions and reactions. We can and should always be the best person that we are capable of in any given situation and then surrender to the outcome. The moment of surrender is where peace is found in the body, mind and spirit.

In my own experience I have found that the pai
I have felt in life is usually caused by my attachment to an idea, outcome or perception of how a situation should have unfolded. When I reflect on these times in my life, I can now see that how things in fact did turn out was much better than what I had planned, but while going through those times and seeing my plans being flushed down the toilet I was literally sick with stress. In those times I would think constantly about what ifs and maybes, my guts would chu
with anxiety and sleep was nowhere to found. All because I thought I was in control of the outcome that I was so attached to, and that brings me to the final insult to rest, Ego.

Our egos are a curious thing. My understanding of the word ego is that it is how we feel we are perceived by those around us. It allows most of us to respond to frustrating situations in a socially acceptable way, for some it creates a convincing argument that they don’t deserve any good or joy in this life, and for others it creates a belief that they deserve what they want when they want it and that they internally have the power to get it. The only power we have is in our moment to moment, day to day actions and reactions. The big picture is being painted by someone else’s brush and when I stop to think about that, I am grateful. The brush holder has much more imagination tha
I do, (I’m more of a paint by numbers kind of a gal).

At the end of the day, for our minds and bodies to find true rest it requires us to let go of our perceived control and attachment, to remove our egos from the equation and find faith. Faith in our own actions, in the support of the people who love us and the universe that surrounds us.