Recently one of my favorite website , the elephant journal, posed an opening blogging question on duality:
Do you recall a time when you allowed yourself to experience the “dark” side of an emotion in order to later experience the “light?” What dualities does your yoga practice bring to you? Does experiencing dualities on the mat serve as a guide to living through them in your life? Yoga teachers out there, can you give some insight into leading your students into this experience (and hopefully out the other side)?
I’ve often commented on my own tendencies (as well as societies) to definite things in a dualistic manner, as black or white,however in truth little exists at these two extremes. Life is not 100% one way or another. Life exists in the happy medium of grey. I take for example my two loves, Othello and Winston, dualistic at the surface, but when you look closer you find that my black pug is not completely black (or pug!), and my white (or fawn) pug is not totally white.
The beauty of grey!
From an early age my understanding of life centered around a duality. I was either accepted or not, fat or thin, happy or sad, stuffed or starving, full of energy or exhausted…the list goes on. Was it impossible that I could live outside of these definitions and just be Hannah? Did I really need to be bound by these words?
I believed these things for a long time. Looking back over the years of school, works, relationships, and friends I find many examples of extremes in regards to what I was doing or who I thought I was. Much of it didn’t come from inside and instead was dictated by the dualistic gods in my head.
As yoga became more and more a presence in my life I began to notice the subtleties of these dualities I took on and questioned how or why I felt such a need to have them in my life. The yin and yang of the yoga postures allowed me to be open to the physical feelings of extremes and the beauty that exists in the combination of the two, stifling my need to restrict to choice A or B. A yoga practice that is too extreme in either way leaves me feeling unbalanced and anxious. My body asks for the calming variety of the yin and yang and it has become innate to answer with it. This practice on the mat has slowly moved its way into my life and allowed me to experience both the dualities of emotions and experiences and I find comfort in knowing that the balance exists in the experience of both. I don’t need to define life or emotion as black or white.
If we never experience utter sadness, despair, loneliness, or fear how can we ever really know when we experience utter joy, love, and happiness? If we never look into the dark we can’t ever see the light. Life, contrary to what many strive for, doesn’t exist in the steady hum of machines, cars, and monotony. We live in a cyclical universe and to pretend otherwise is to defy the laws of nature; only resulting in the chaos that is so prevalent in acceleration of global warming, the increases in mental illness, sickness, and obesity, as well as in the violence of war.
Open yourself to the freedom that is possible and innate to being alive; to being human.
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