Take a deep breath

  – by Rachel Ferdaszewski

Hatha yoga is practiced in its truest from as a complete way of life. Our western adaptation of the physical practice (asanas) is actually only one of many components. During my training to become an instructor of westernized Hatha Yoga practices, we focused primarily on asanas as they are done in the USA, but other areas of Hatha Yoga practice were explored as well. One of the foundational aspirations on one undertaking this practice is mindful presence. There are many terms used to describe this but the basic concept is that life is lived in the moment. This moment of your life, this one happening right now as you read this, is the most important thing happening right now. This is an ultimate truth because any given moment is actually the ONLY thing happening for you at that moment. In many traditions, physical yoga is used as a preparation for meditation. A ritual used to focus the mind on the present.

Before becoming a parent, I was engaged in improving myself. I was working on accepting myself and those around me as we are, in this moment. I was working on deepening my relationship with God. I was working on living in the present and appreciating the gifts God has built into each moment of life. All of this worthy effort was a very real yet very academic pursuit for me. I was studying the best way to be the best me. When my daughter was born, I realized what I had been practicing for.

In some ways, being present with my daughter is so easy. She is so engaged in every tiny, overlooked aspect of life. It is wonderful to observe her and get drawn into her world of discovery. In other ways, she is the biggest reminder of how far I still have to go. My heart is broken several times a day as I tear her away from the lovely, organic, exploration that is her life in order to run errands, take her to the nanny’s, or get to Church on time. Her complete presence in every moment of her life makes me mourn the loss of this in my own life. My life in this world does not currently afford me this ability and it saddens me to realize that something so essential to what it means to be human, is considered by most to be a luxury. How do I remove those barriers?

In a society where “time is money” and efficiency is king, we can often feel like our efforts to be present are wasteful or irresponsible. Nothing could be further from the truth. When I look at my daughter, I realize I have a choice to make: will I learn from her true nature and teach myself to slow down, or will I force society’s expectations on her and teach her to hurry up? I hope that I can strike a balance. I hope I can prepare her to make a living in our modern society while somehow conveying that it is relationships that make it a life. I hope I can show her that the exquisite things in this world are always there for us to see as long as we remember to notice them. I hope that I can teach her that love and beauty and silence and chaos are together in every moment, all we have to do to see it is to be still. And breathe.