Surrender to Your Breath
Musings From the Mat Part 2
by Kyla Dagenais
There is an unmistakable sound a human being makes when they surrender to their breath.
When their set intention is to breathe and be present with it. When they experience, fully, the rise and fall of the body and surrender to the waves that come and go.
This sound kept me teaching for a decade, the simple sound of a being coming home to themselves.
To create this sound, they cannot be in their thoughts. They have to be present in the comings and goings of what is in this very moment.
They have to release the judgments and continuous chatter in their mind. We aim to achieve this state as we challenge the nervous system with the poses.
Within this challenge, we cultivate a peaceful mind.
I get so excited about hearing this sound because I know when it arrives. If they can find it here on the mat, they hold the potential for the actual practice of yoga, which extends beyond the mat and into their lives and, essentially, into the world around them.
“Deep breaths are like little love notes to your body.” — Unknown
Physical tension is unavoidable. It is perhaps the continuous space of suffering that the human being will never escape. From the time we learn to stand, we meet the force of gravity always and forever from that point, applying pressure to the body and our nervous system. The poses are intended to alleviate this pressure to a degree, but we will never escape its presence.
The ancients understood this, and the poses of yoga entered the practice. They observed the natural world and how the animals surrounding them would release tension. Birds stretch their wings, and dogs do ‘down-dog’ poses to release their back and shoulders.
Thousands of years ago, there was an understanding that the body’s pain caused distress in our minds, also working in reverse. The discomfort of the mind has the full potential to create suffering in the body.
We aim to find peace in both mind and body on the mat - through meditative movement with a focus on the breath!
Our body holds our story. By this, I mean it holds the energy of our thoughts as well as the repetitive motions of our bodies. We build patterns around our thoughts and these patterns become our daily actions. The collection of these patterns is what makes up daily life.
We find comfort in the security of the patterns we live out, whether they’re good for us or not. Daily, we venture into the unknown, and the human mind will create the safest environment possible by taking control over the patterns, or their control over us offers a sense of security.
By surrendering to the breath and moving into the body, we’re faced directly with the results of our patterns of action and thought. The mind’s knee-jerk reaction to this space of intimacy is to run to the looping beliefs or stories that we have created to keep us in the patterns we are living.
If we have the courage to sit in them and observe, it’s here we can release the stories that no longer serve us - but first, we must find the rhythm of the breath and rest in what is.
Do you know within yourself the patterns that you have implemented to stay safe? How do you feel internally when you step out of your comfort zone? Can you hear the sound of your breath?
With love,
Kyla.