How practice & letting go give us wings to take flight.

The two wings of any dedicated pursuit – including yoga & meditation – are practice {abhyasa} & letting go {vairagya}. If you want to run a marathon, you have to train {ya know, practice} & you have to give up {let go of} some free time with friends, that third beer, & McDonald’s for every meal if you want to be able to make it to the finish line.

Likewise for a yoga or meditation practice. No one would expect to someone who had never run a day in their life to jump right into the Boston marathon {& win}. So why do so many of expect to have a calming meditation or be a rock-star yogi without practice? Pattahbi Jois said yoga is 99% practice, 1% theory….he also said practice, practice, practice, & all is coming.

Although establishing a dedicated practice takes effort, the efforts {nearly always} yield some positive, tangible results: so a positive feedback loop is established. In other words, when we practice, we feel better & when we feel better, we want to practice. Most of us can see the benefit of practicing. We get it already. Move on, next thing.

So here you go: the letting go part. Getting good at letting go takes more effort, dedication, & stick-to-iveness. Yet this step is crucial to allowing ourselves to blossom into our full potential. Now before I lose you, let me clarify what I mean by letting go {otherwise known as renunciation}: give up what’s keeping you from practicing. Does that mean you have to stop eating meat? Stop drinking wine? Quit going out? Not unless you think those things are holding you back in your practice or keeping you from practicing.

Unlike that positive feedback loop established from regular practice, regular letting go takes courage, trust, & determination. The benefits {rewards} are there, but they’re hidden under a pile of fear, risk, & attachment. In other words, the risk to reward ratio is quite high. But like anything else, with practice, letting go gets easier & easier.

Consider it like this: your practice is a dear friend you haven’t seen in many years. You want to give your friend the biggest bear hug imaginable but your hands are full. What do you do? You put down whatever’s in your hands & you run over to embrace your dear friend with open arms, of course.

Treat your yoga or meditation practice like that dear friend. You haven’t seen it many years – perhaps a whole lifetime – but the effect when you embrace it is the same: joy, relief, compassion, zest, & enthusiasm. In order to fully experience the many benefits of your yoga or meditation practice, we need to let go of whatever we’re holding {& is holding us back}. And we need to keep making it to the mat or the meditation cushion; we need to keep practicing. 

We all have to decide for ourselves what to let go. What someone may need to give up may not be harming or inhibiting another’s practice. It’s not our place to be moralistic or to set up hard & fast rules for absolutely everyone. The process of letting go is the combined result of satya in svadhyaya: truth in self-study or honest self-inquiry.

The fruits of any dedicated yoga or meditation practice are many: equanimity, strength – inner & outer – compassion, kindness, flexibility of body and of mind. Yet to fully access & experience those benefits, we have to keep going & we have to get rid of the stumbling blocks.

So put down whatever you’ve been holding on to. Just let it go. Make it to the mat, get on that meditation cushion, continue to practice: and watch yourself bloom.

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Tagged as: health and wellness, meditation, practice, yoga practice