Written By Lisa Taylor
Geez! Today is my first day on a horoscope app that a friend invited me to join. It is called Co-Star.
I have enjoyed astrology over the years, more than the average person; I’ve had my natal chart for years, have had sun charts made, and even learned about how to read charts in a classroom setting.
So it is safe to say this is more astrology than the average American indulges in throughout their lives.
Yet it seems I am late to the game! As I opened my app for the first time and marveled at the information I was reading, all of the younger teachers around me were saying things like, “oh yeah, you are just now seeing this for the first time.”
They said this to me, like I am the old one, not cool, not with the times, don’t know what is going on. So anyway, this quote was my reading.
“Throw roses into the abyss to thank the monsters who didn’t succeed in swallowing you alive.”
– Co-Star
On December 24, I will be 50 years old.
I feel excited about this, knowing some of the best days are ahead and realizing, especially lately, I have survived some challenges I might not have thought I could.
I have survived the abyss, one that I wouldn’t have without my years of yoga practice.
Without years of practice, both on and off the mat, I would have melted at the enormity of the challenge. But, somehow, I knew to both act and be still, to take care of what was needed at the moment but not take too much action, grasping at the first quick fix to make the fear of the abyss go away.
It wasn’t going away.
In fact, it was growing larger each day.
Purposeful inaction is hard.
This type of inaction isn’t the lazy sort of do-nothing, avoidance type. We are talking inaction in the face of a deep desire to put the frantic fix-it on a problem just to make it go away!
Standing still in the face of overwhelm and fully experiencing the experience: all of the feelings and impacts of the new reality.
This is purposeful inaction.
And you have to stay until a new reality emerges. But when it does, your movements are ninja-like, inspired, stealth, precise.
It takes a lot of faith to allow yourself to fully experience something you don’t want to and arrive at a clearing. It is a superpower.
You can practice purposeful inaction every day on your mat.
When you are sweaty and anxious to get to the next pose
get to the floor poses
get to the end of class
get back to the challenges of your day…
stay in the pose.
and wait.
Feel everything there is to feel. Wait for a new experience of the pose, every pose, every time. Wait until you can hear your breath moving inside of your body in the pose.
So yeah, you will get great exercise too.
But if you stand at the abyss and thank the monsters for not swallowing you alive, you will be practicing a superpower!
Written by Lisa Taylor: Female Business Owner, World-Class Yoga Instructor, and Owner and Founder of Evolution Power Yoga
Photography by Jenny Foster, Foster J Foster
