Had some recent experience of “heart” lately – not only mine but the heart of a community. Seems so many words come to mind to describe heart and all of them are always rich with meaning and depth. Whatever the descriptor, it’s meant to capture what is at the core of one’s being – albeit at that moment, not necessarily for all time. The experience can feel so big or consuming that it’s as if that one word or two is all there is, and there is no room for anything else. No matter what it is that grabs your heart, how important it is to allow for shifts and changes in what takes up space there. Seems this allowing may be what keeps the heart alive, keeps it beating.
How vital it is to bring “heart” when showing up for your practice – whether yoga or meditation or meeting another on the mat in yoga therapy. What this means to me is that you bring passion to what you do. There you are with attachment in your heart because then you are living and breathing what you do. The voice inside tells you that this is who you really are (or who you want to be), and the energy of your heart is maybe a bit too attached to what’s happening there for you. But isn’t this attachment what enables you to bring all of you authentically to your practice? Wouldn’t feel right to show up “half-hearted,” would it?
So, my real question is how to put your “heart” into your practice and allow non-attachment to come in as well. This is the moment when your heart is filled with passion – where it’s so full that you can ride that path of attachment all the way to where it lets go and sets you free. Otherwise it becomes an encumbrance, holding you too tightly and gets in the way. It may seem a bit contradictory at first, but a few breaths into it and perhaps you can feel how it’s like breathing in and breathing out.
How awkward it would be to try to walk about with lungs full all the time. Seems like there has to be some letting go in order to keep us alive…