Be the mountain
A practice in rest
For the past few weeks I’ve been “actively” practicing rest. It sounds contradictory but from my perspective it’s definitely an action!
What I mean by that is I have to bring intention and attention to rest. Moving slowly or standing still is not a comfortable posture for me and I’d rather check something on my “never ending” to do list than be resting.
BUT.
Rest is what I need. Rest brings me inner peace. Rest allows me to release old tensions.
Rest is progress.
That one sentence is on repeat in my head when I practice. Because I wasn’t raised to rest. Every message I got from my immediate and larger environment growing up was : “you have to work, you have to be productive, if you rest you are lazy, you should feel guilty aout resting, etc.”
Then, a few years ago, I started yoga. My teacher used to say : do less. We used to stay in uncomfortable poses for long stretch of time to learn to be as (im)mobile as possible. On the mat, I learned the art of relaxing tensions so small they are almost not perceptible until you feel the release. I thought for a while the practice was integrated.
Yes and no.
It was, to a certain degree, until life came with its bucket full of surprises, its crisis and storms, and I forgot. Fortunately, I was reminded again by other teachers how important it was to pause, stand still, be the mountain.
In yoga, the mountain pose is practiced standing, feet hip width apart, arms alongside the body. As I was doing the posture this past weekend, I was reminded how beneficial it is. It’s a great way to ground yourself in nature (if you can bare your feet it’s even better), to feel you are part of something bigger as well as being a mountain for those smaller creatures.
And while I was trying my best to connect to the energy of the mountain I realized, contrary to my belief that a mountain remains the same, it doesn’t. Their evolution is different, that’s all. It might not be measured in seconds or minutes, but mountains change. The weather erodes their surface, earthquakes create cracks in their armor, the wind carries part of them in the wind.
Mountains, just like us, are touched by nature. Mountains are forever evolving, everyday progressing even in small ways.
That’s why I now say I’m actively practicing rest in different contexts, mountain’s pose being one of them. I allow myself to be touched, to receive, to be caressed, to lose parts of me to become what I am supposed to in this human body.
Remember : rest is progress.
