"We all need something that helps us forget ourselves for a while--to momentarily forget our age, our gender, our socioeconomic background, our duties, our failures, and all that we have lost and screwed up. We need something that takes us so far out of ourselves that we forget to eat, forget to pee, forget to mow the lawn, forget to resent our enemies, forget to brood over our insecurities...Perhaps creativity's greatest mercy is this: By completely absorbing our attention for a short and magical spell, it can relieve us temporarily from the dreadful burden of being who we are."
In these three wonderful sentences, Elizabeth Gilbert describes in her book Big Magic exactly for what I have always been searching. That one thing where I am lost in a moment seemingly even forgetting to breathe. Breathing is something that happens without even us having to think about it, having to analyse it. That's what a passion is with the added bonus that it is an act that "helps us forget ourselves."
So much of what we are learning about living mindfully today is to be conscious of who we are, to be aware of our actions and our choices, to live on purpose. Yet often what we desire is to, as Gilbert says, forget ourselves and to be in an almost--transcendental place, absorbed in an act of doing that which fills our soul with a feeling of being exactly where we are meant to be and who we are meant to be.
For me, this comes in multiple forms. When I was a little girl, I lost all track of time and space when I was reading. Reading has always been my escape, my education, my elevation to a place of purity and imagination. Nothing mattered when I was reading. Not the chaos around me growing up in a house with parents who tried their best but were not the best at communicating with each other, unless it was in an argument. Not the pressures of a new school where I was pretty much shown how average of a student I was (average being a kind word). Not the strangeness of a new city when I moved to start a job where the expectations were high and the global spotlight was blinding. Not the long, confusing, winding path of searching for and finding "the one". Not the delicate nature of peeling away the layers of understanding marriage. Not the harsh self--judgement that comes hand in hand with motherhood (Rachel Cusk's words in A Life's Work come to mind: "I suspect some failure in myself: of force, of identity, of purpose"). And not the bewilderment that comes with facing ageing and all the strange and wonderful realities of entering a new phase in my biology. None of it matters as I crack open a book, smell the earthy scent of the pages, and dive into the illuminating pool of each and every word promising to inspire me and even save me.
While words feed my mind and soul, taking me away from the everyday, I have found that yoga is doing the same for me too but in a different way. Practising the asanas, the poses and the flows are feeding me physically, physiologically. B.K.S. Iyengar writes in Yoga for Life, "To a yogi, the body is a laboratory for life, a field of experimentation and perpetual research." Ironically, it is this research that inevitably leads us to understanding more about ourselves, about myself. Iyengar adds, "We begin at the level of the physical body, the aspect of ourselves that is most concrete and accessible to all of us. It is here that yogasana and pranayama (breathing) practice allow us to understand our body with ever greater insight and through the body to understand our mind and reach our soul." I find when I am practicing any particular class, especially the ones where I am stretching and moving with purpose and flow, my mind is no longer wondering about my day or my life because it is physically impossible for me to do both. I have to be present. I have to be focused on the moment. I have to look inward and feel every cell in order see and viscerally understand what my body is trying to tell me. Otherwise I will fall, twist, and leave a practice feeling unfulfilled. It is what many practitioners describe as a "work in" as opposed to a "work out". I find strength to keep trying and moving by looking out the window and seeing this one beautiful 15m/45ft tree that stands tall in my neighbour's garden, its leaves moving with grace every time there is a breeze. It's the same when I close my eyes and look inwards, feeling the relief and even invigoration with subtle adjustments reminding me that sometimes breakthroughs and changes can come from making small moves.
And then there is my writing. My favourite part of this process is staring at a blank page with the cursor blinking away, willing me, daring me to have the courage to put into words what I am feeling, what I am thinking. I never knew I loved to write or at least I never thought about it. I enjoyed writing my term papers in high school and university, taking great pride in how I presented my research and op