Balancing Acts: Grounding Yourself in Uncertainty

So it has not quite been 6 weeks into my first trimester here at Kripalu and it is already time to be thinking about applying for an extension for the next term or, in my case, how to balance my intuitive need for more seva with my calling to do my 200 hr yoga teacher training. My mind is usually more than happy to make the leap to the future tense and get lost amid the many possibilities and probabilities that await me there, but I find now that I am more and more reluctant to devote my energy to such thoughts. The choas of all these impatient, battling voices battering me with should’s and should not’s concerning my next steps is draining and I am finding it difficult to pinpoint where, exactly, these feelings of general unease and anxiety are located. Sometimes it feels like my mind has literally run off with itself and left me mired in the emotional wreckage of the storm with no idea what caused it.

It is in these times that I seek out practices and postures that offer a way to ground myself while also addressing the internal inbalances that have inevitably sprung up. Tree pose is one of my favorite balance poses with crane a close second. The reason I love Tree, however, is in the fact that it allows me to individually ground each side before then returning to Mountain and unifying the balance. I like to take the variation with my hands extended like seeking branches reaching for the warmth of the rising sun while my right or left foot seals to the earth below. It feels akin to opening a conduit that spears through my crown and sends energy into the ground. It is not just balancing my left and right side but my koshas as well. The spacial energy of the ether from above is balanced by the rooting of my foot into the earth below bringing silence to my chattering mind from which clarity inevitably follows.

It is a balanced body and mind that I want to inhabit this world in and only through that can I authentically approach plans for the future. The very nature of the future is uncertainty as nothing has been decided nor is anything gaurenteed regardless of how rigorously planned they may be. The only way to approach thoughts and planning for the future is to enter into it from a balanced state so that you are able to assess the options without having one energy body, such as the ego, take precendence over another and skew your perceptions.

For example, the subject of money is something that me and most other people find to often take over our thoughts when thinking about any future plans. Especially when it comes to being able to support yourself while balancing your own wants and needs in life. What often happens to me is that I will start off from a very balanced, open space where each option starts off as a relatively innoculous possibility. Then thoughts start creeping in and questions start arising regarding how I will afford to do what I want in the time I feel I need to which is then inevitably followed by my mind protesting the focus on money. This is all closely followed by guilt over not doing what I “should” be doing with my degrees which then unravels into a feeling of desperation to validate what I am doing now to myself and others. This all then leaves me with an anxious knot in my chest, a whirling cyclone in my mind, and no closer any definitive answer than when I started. Even further from it in most cases as I’ve now ungrounded myself and made myself vulnerable to the maelstrom of uncertainty.

The only way to truly find the answers we seek is to allow the space to open for them in our minds. If we allow ourselves, our egos, to become attached to our thoughts, expectations, and stories we tell ourselves than we will only see the future through the discolored lens of that particular aspect. Instead, being able to ground that ether or spacial energy and find that balance within ourselves from which our witness can observe and reflect is the true path to getting the answers we seek.