I have uprooted my life in Vancouver, BC to follow my heart on a grand adventure. YAY! Fun, excitement and grand romance!
And….terrifying.
In taking this wild ride, I kicked out the support struts from under my own foundation. I’ve uprooted my job, access to friends, familiar surroundings, material possessions, and my happy routines.
Despite the romance of adventure, I feel like a cat in a strange house: ears back, tail down, looking for corner in which to hide.
We all know this space: let’s call it free fall.
Free fall happens when we change jobs, fall in love, break up, move across the country, get a divorce, get married, have kids, or undergo any manner of “major change.” Free fall also happens in little ways in our daily lives. We feel it when we screw up at work, fight with a loved one, fall short as a parent, or lose our sense of self-worth.
“Fear of death carries its own essence and predominates [the consciousness of] even the wise.”
Patanjali Sutra 2.9, Yoga International
Yoga philosophy tells us that fear of death (abhinivesa) is natural, even in the wise. (We can understand this “death” as both literal and metaphorical.) However, to live the soulful lives that we deeply want, we must be willing to face death again and again. We must risk dying to our ego, our attachments, our perceptions, and our habits.
“Chaos should be regarded as very good news.”
Pema Chodron
When we enter free fall – whether it’s a major upheaval or a minor tremor – we can regard it as good news. Free fall exposes our dependence on the external world – possessions, job titles, other people’s opinions, or even relationships – for our sense of wholeness. When the “bottom falls out,” we have the opportunity to recognize that there is in fact, another bottom. Beyond our ego, there is something that lies within us that is stable, consistent, loving, and whole. But usually we are so busy fortifying our sense of safety with the immediate stuff (jobs, possessions, praise) that we don’t recognize and our deeper Reserves.
“Only to the extent that we expose ourselves over and over to annihilation can that which is indestructible in us be found.”
Pema Chodron
When we practice yoga, we are – in a sense – practicing free fall. We come to our mats to create a space where we can exist – for a time – beyond the habitual identifications with our jobs, habits, and even family dynamics. We look across the room at other travellers practicing on the mat; we don’t need to know what they do or even their names: we are simply fellow travellers in Presence. When we give ourselves this breathing room – in a sense, creating our own “little death” – we create a space to arrive freshly in our lives as if for the first time.
It takes enormous courage to willingly come into Free Fall, to brush against death in order to dismantle the comfortable structures that can obfuscate our deeper selves. The next time that you find yourself in a Free Fall, can you – with sweetness and self-care – breathe into that wide open space of uncertainty?
“We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time. ”
TS Eliot
