Child's play

CHILD’ S PLAY

Some things I have learned in the 200 hours TTC were in fact not new to me.

There were quite some asana’s and parts of the philosophy that were actually a part of me since childhood, but sometimes forgotten or waiting in a very dusty corner of my head to be used again.

When I focus on the asana’s this will surely include most of the inversions, like headstand and handstand. Who didn’t do them when we were young!? But also the walking on your hands while in lotus, putting your feet behind your neck and swing, the back roll, the splits, didn’t we do all of this, just as child’s play?

That lead me to the following question, what is it that we lost as adults that kids still have? The meaning of child’s play is “an activity by children that is guided more by imagination than by fixed rules”. And, “Any undertaking which is easy to do”. Or as our 200hr YTT class would say “easy peasy lemon squeezy!”

For most of us though, these asana’s are not like that at all anymore. The first thing that kicks in when you have to do a pose like that is your mind. It will tell you that you cannot do so or so, it will also tell you that you might break your neck, thus creating insecurity and fear.

Why would our mind send us these messages, while as we practise, we find out our body is actually very well capable of doing it? Two things probably happen; bad memories come up, maybe you’ve fallen down once or twice (or hundreds of times) and it has been so long that you don’t know anymore how to do it.

We lost the feeling with our body; we lost faith in our body. We lost a common good that we once had; a careless, unconcerned, carefree, light hearted, light-spirited mind. We have filled our heads with lots of other things like worries, responsibilities, to-do-lists and tight schedules.

The nice thing about practicing yoga, in all aspects, is that you will go back to this state of light heartedness. By practicing asana’s you will regain faith in your body, and thus faith in yourself. The mind will have to focus on one thing, on that what you are doing, just as children while playing. Do you think a child has more on his mind than playing with the car when he is playing with the car? Nope, he is in total focus, a one pointed concentration, and no monkey mind jumping all over the place.

You have won one of the many fights in your mind if you can do your asana’s with the same focus, the same empty head and the same joy as a child would do.  And if you did it with your asana’s and it worked, how about trying it for the rest of your life with everything you do?

JUST DO IT!

Live your life to your full potential,

Stop thinking,

Be aware and alert,

Focus,

Be joyful and PLAY!