As an urban yoga teacher, I’m very aware of the pace of life of Londoners, across all industries; the frenetic ever increasing pace to be productive rarely ceases until the rat race ends. So as soon as students walk in I immediately make a point of switching off and slowing down. Once everyone is comfortably settled in Sivasana I get them to focus consciously on giving themselves permission to let go; mentally and physically, to stop doing and start to just be – doing free. Submit to the letting go and keep attempting to get to that precarious point where your mind finally stops throwing it’s abusive barrage of demands of other more productive Doing options than being here lying still in yoga.
Then finally the magic happens, when you see it or sometimes feel it, the moment when your students finally exhale out of their minds and inhale into their bodies; it’s a beautiful blessing to witness really. Instead of doing, planning, analysing, worrying,replaying the mental movie and chasing thoughts, you travel to a different part of your being and tune into feeling. Feeling your breath, feeling your spine sink into the floor, feeling the pitter patter of your heartbeat; Feeling and BE-ing instead of Thinking and DO-ing.
Mindful of yourself, aware of your monkey-mind, acknowledge it, observe the thoughts without getting caught up, return to your centre of being; breathing into stillness, spaciousness, expansiveness, non judgement and eventually non thinking. Move out of thinking and into feeling, not thinking about feeling but just pure feeling. Be Here Now; famous words by legend guru Ram Dass, also more recently Mr. Eckhart Tolle with his simple message of presence in The Power of Now.
So in this busy Western world, what is more important or relevant; Doing or Being? Both are totally necessary for a balanced life, in fact scientific studies show that mindfulness through meditation has proven to lower heart attack rates, anxiety, reduce cholesterol and levels of cortisol ( http://www.thelancet.com/
In reality if people were to implement 10 minutes of sitting with yourself or ‘meditation’ focusing just on feeling + tuning into your breath, t would naturally make sense that when you return to thinking and doing you’d return with this awareness unabridged, therefore your doing would be more succinct, coherent and effortless; ie efficiency and productivity would increase. If you find it just too hard to quiet the mind initially, use a mantra – which is just a word you silently repeat to yourself, OM or So-hum are amazing. Mantras are very powerful and extraordinarily effective as they anchor you and help to minimise distraction.
I’ve come to the realisation that it only makes sense if you want to be a better human doing surely you need to spend more time on human being right? Acknowledge yourself, your space, your body whenever possible, even if it’s only a 10 minute window, you deserve and need this time for the greater good. Mindfulness will eventually spread into your every day life in little ways, as you start to think more about it – though thinking is the opposite of what you want to do- for some it is the start of the road into feeling; initially it IS the only way in. As soon as you’re feeling overwhelmed, that you need to slow down and feel more, do it, it needn’t take long..Get out of the office, find a little patch of green and sit with yourself, close your eyes and tune into feeling. Feel your hands touch, feel your eyes see, your tongue taste and come right into your centre by feeling your heart beat. Your DOing-ness will improve remarkably once you master your Being-ness. Inhale Exhale…
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