In a yoga class I attended earlier this year, the teacher explained that a key concept in yoga is ‘letting go.’ You gain flexibility through letting go of tension. If you’ve ever done yoga, you’ll know that you can move into a pose more easily as you breathe out. There’s a letting go of tension with the breath. You relinquish control. This letting go feels fantastic if we can go with it. It enables our bodies to bend, to flex and to move into postures we didn’t know we could manage.
So let’s explore this idea of letting go. We can get very attached to ideas about situations, about people, about ourselves, or to the idea itself. This can be true even if we don’t particularly like what we’re holding on to. There can be a level of grief around letting go, especially if we’ve held on for a long time. It’s important to acknowledge this and to understand that this is a normal part of change. It can be hard to let go! In yoga our bodies may resist. In life it may be our minds. The thing is, change can’t take place without a letting go. And once we manage this, we need to be prepared to sit empty for a time until the ‘new’ takes shape. If you force the change prematurely, you may end up with something you need to let go of again before long. You may find too that you need to let go in stages. In yoga, you can often increase a stretch with each out breath. In life, you may need to let go of a little at a time in order to grow and achieve lasting change, to achieve a new form. This isn’t to detract from how uncomfortable it can be to sit in the void that remains when you let go of something. Yet it’s worth considering that a void isn’t empty. Rather, it’s full of energy (a clever friend of mine suggested this). I think that perhaps rather than worrying about the lack of form, it’s helpful to concentrate on letting go of the need to mould the energy. Try to breathe out without worrying how far you will be able to stretch and just enjoy the process, or at least be comfortable to sit with the discomfort. If it’s not far enough, let go some more on the next breath. You may need to live with ambiguity for a while, but this is where growth takes place and you might just find that you are able to bend and flex into forms you never knew were possible. So take a deep breath and then I encourage you to breathe out.
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The wonderful thing about coaching is that it flips the question ‘What’s wrong with me?’ on its head. Instead, the focus is on exploring your strengths and values and your unique approach to life. In short, you start to ask ‘what’s right with me?’ I guarantee you that for each and every one of us, the answer will be ‘A LOT!’ What a wonderful base to start from! When we start with strong foundations, we can build an amazing future. We are also in a great position to support others. If you’re wondering how to answer the question ‘what’s right with me?’ I would recommend you start by brainstorming. Grab a large piece of paper and your favourite pens, pencils, textas, or even cut words out of a magazine. Be as creative as you like. Then, without thinking too much about it, write down all the things you do well, all the things that are important to you and all the things that people have told you that they admire about you. If this is difficult to begin with, I would encourage you to press ahead anyway. Your perseverance may help you draw out your most creative ideas, or help you to tap into things that you've forgotten about yourself. Remember that the idea of brainstorming is to write down everything that comes into your head. Don’t censor it at all. No one needs to see your piece of paper, so you can put down anything and everything. You may find you have to push through a ‘stuck’ phase before all the ideas come rushing out. It’s worth persevering to get to this point. Once you have this all down on paper, read through it. You may find there are some themes coming through. They may start to emerge as clear strengths and values. These are the foundations you will then build on, allowing you to explore all the things that are right with you. There are also online tools to help you identify your strengths. The VIA Character Strengths survey is a good one and it’s free. If there’s ever a good time to work out ‘what’s right with me’, it’s now. If you need some help, coaching is a great way to do this. Have a wonderful day. Have you ever felt like a square peg in a round hole? Like you’ve been moulding yourself to fit, but your corners prevent you from slotting in no matter which angle you try?
Instead of your corners needing ‘fixing’ or sanding down to become round, the corner getting stuck might be one of your values, it might be an unrecognised strength, or it might even be an unrealised dream. Think about this…You can squeeze your corners into the hole and this might serve you well for a while. The discomfort may be balanced by a number of benefits. This may be convenience, it may be friendships, it may that the situation has started to feel normal for you, or if it’s a work situation, you may be well paid or close to home. You may have even reached a point where you’re not sure what shape you are anymore. What you do know is that it doesn’t feel quite right and that some of the most prominent parts of you, the parts of you that should stand out and define you, are squashed out of shape. What does this mean for your values, your strengths, your dreams? So what do you do? Well, it’s all about choice. You can choose to stay in the round hole and this is a very valid option. You may be able to mould yourself enough that you don’t notice your cramped corners as much. The other option is to courageously jump out and let your corners spring back. Sometimes you won’t even know what this looks like until you remove yourself from the round hole. It’s only then that you have the space to examine your corners with curiosity, to understand how they serve you and if you are in fact a square, or an entirely different shape. It’s at this point the magic happens. This is where you start to understand your values, your strengths and how you can make them work for you, bringing about positive life change. Here’s to exploring your corners and to taking steps to discover your true shape and the type of life you would like to create around you. |
AuthorLaurenne Di Salvo Archives
March 2024
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