Stuck on the sofa

Stuck on the sofa 05-02-2016

W e live in a society that encourages us to create a pleasant way of living and of course there are many advancements that have notably improved the quality of our lives. I do not deny all the good that those things bring us every day, but in the richest countries this tendency towards comfort has surpassed the limits of what is favorable to the development of a healthy human being. I can think of a short list of commodities that can be terrible for your body-mind-heart:

chairs, the sofa, your car
moving & thinking always the same way
baby walkers
precooked and comfort foods
social networks

The result of this search for the easy is that we are stuck on the energetic sofa (kind of like Homer Simpson) at all levels of our body-mind-heart. Then the practice of Sridaiva comes and tells you "Hey, you, get up and moving! Come on, up you go!" It might not be comfy, but is good because it makes you change the old sticky patterns. This inner-outer shift is real and long lasting. Desi Springer and John Friend have observed three initial challenges that any student can expect to encounter when they start practicing Sridaiva. You might find that one or the three resonate with you as well:

Psychosomatic openning

The body is a field of energy and information. The memories from absolutely everything that you have experienced is stored in each cell without you even realizing it, specially in the connective tissue or fascia that, among other functions, it works as a super intelligent network of communication among all parts of the body. the word "psychosomatic" refers to the mental processes that influence and affect the corporeal. Sridaiva awakens old stored information and it allows you to release it, letting it go forever. In the beginning, the Bowspring practice is like going through an emotional detox, but of course, that is not comfortable because it brings up the worst in you and Who likes to see all that? Many students around the world agree with the fact that their first Sridaiva classes made them feel unpleasant emotions as they were stirred inside, but that after a period of going to regular classes those symptoms eased and they felt lighter and more positive than ever. This was my experience as well! For years the importance of being "well" has been emphasized without explaining that to get there one has to cleanse and detox consciously all the information from our past that was left alone without being processed properly. We don't tend to like that, it involves seeing many heavy, yucky emotions. The somatic cleanse process happens in cycles, each time that you go up one loop in your upwards evolutionary spiral, more things present themselves for you to transform and let go.

Feeling of being incompetent

In the first classes we tend to feel clumsy and awkward because the work of the Bowspring activates many parts of our body-mind-heart that were asleep for a while. This happens clearly to those that have a trajectory of experience in Modern Postural Yoga because we are locked in one specific way of moving and being in the body. From the first movements in a Sridaiva class we realize that we can not function the way that we were used to. This second point is great! if you remember, the feeling of incompetence was kind of the norm when you were a beginning student. To be able to go back to that is a blessing. One of the core ideas in Sridaiva is to remain always a student, among other things, because a beginner's mind is open, pure, humble, sensitive and awakens the state of presence. There is nothing worse in the evolutionary path than to think that you have arrived somewhere or that you already know it all. This attitude closes and hardens¬†you energetically, stopping you from living every moment with the innocent freshness of the heart that does things always for the first time.

Radical shift of paradigm

Paradigm shifts are not strange in the history of spirituality. To begin with, most yoga postures that people practice in studios around the globe are nothing but "modern" and are less that one hundred years old. Consider also all the new yoga modalities that have emerged since the seventies. So yoga has always been a ¬†path in constant and deep evolution. The Sridaiva postural forms and the Bowspring alignment system are radically different from Modern Postural Yoga. When you go to a Sridaiva class and see that the forms differ so much from what you are used to do as "yoga", the surprise is so great at times that you unconsciously retract and your mind closes, but imagine that you had lived in Paris in the beginning of the 20th century and someone had introduced you to Picasso. Lets imagine that he brought you up to his studio and he showed you Les demoiselles d'Avignon (one of my favorites!). I am sure that your reaction would have been a lot stronger. Another aspect to take into consideration is that Sridaiva makes us recover the essence of how to be and move within a human body. Coming back to the "original" movement is hard at first because for a long time we have denied our human essence and the animal patterns that govern the way we move. Sometimes coming back to the natural seems foreign or unthinkable because we have grown accustomed to the limitations and the artificial. The shift in vision that Sridaiva brings is incredibly wonderful and opens immense possibilities to your capacity for happiness and health in your body-mind-heart. The students that are ready to let go of the old are the ones that advance faster into a deeper understanding of how to awaken the natural Bowspring pattern. It requires tons of patience, compassion and determination from all of us. Lastly, Why does a class have to be easy? A class is NOT supposed to be easy! You are here to work, to give it all and apply yourself at the deepest level. Furthermore, when a class is too easy, you fall asleep, the brain stops working and you stop creating new neurological connections or of any other kind.