Finding softness within the fire…

A super recurrent theme for me recently has been the idea of ‘softness’. After feeling beautifully refreshed after Mindful Guernsey’s amazing Yoga Alchemy retreat, I got to spend some time reflecting more and more on my own practice.

One of my favourite things about Nicky and Raj’s teaching’s is that it’s always so personally inquisitive. They ask you to turn to yourself – to question yourself within your practice. Practice becomes a deep reflection, instead of something we just do and then get on with our day. Questions like, “Where is your mind now?” and nudges to notice if you’ve transferred any tension into your face, can’t help but keep you totally immersed in your experience. I feel like the whole practice becomes a questioning, with a playful curiosity – and the things I learn amaze me. You get to realise all the opinions, thoughts, and personalities of yourself that come up within your practice – the one who wants to “do their best” and push hard, the one who thinks about a feeling, rather than actually feeling it, and of course the hilarious one who just thinks absolute irrelevant, weird nonsense in the middle of practice.

Not all of the practices were ‘easy’ or ‘comfortable’ at the weekend, and there were some moments where I could definitely feel the fire – in my legs, in my abdomen, in my breath. Things can get quite physically intense, and your mind can jump to those little comments, like “Please, please let this pose end soon!”. But one question that has seemed to arise throughout all of my practices recently is, “Can you soften here? And if you can’t, what could you do to make it possible?” Sometimes it’s as simple as letting go of your idea of how things should be. I’ve noticed, as I’m sure is the same with everyone, how rigid, tense or how ‘hard’ things become when I try and force them. That goes for absolutely everything, whether it’s a pose or if it’s off the mat.

The past few weeks I’ve been on a bit of a sensual, softening rampage…seeing how much and how often I can bring softness into my day. It’s lovely. It feels like an “ahhhhhhhh” breath throughout the whole of myself and the space around me. But it’s also challenging – it’s funny how something like ‘softening’ sounds so wonderful, yet we can find it so so difficult! I’ve noticed within myself that grasping, clinging, trying to work out everything, is the complete opposite of softness. With softness, there is much more movement, much more flexibility, so much surrender. But most of the time, we don’t want to surrender. Of course… we want to control everything! Which is really funny if we think about it…because absolutely none of this crazy current we call life is ever going to be under our total control!

Letting yourself find a softness on the mat is pretty brave I think. In a world full of “outer Yoga”, where we see so many people doing crazy, awesome things with their bodies, we can sometimes forget to be true to ourselves. Coming to turn our attention inside, we can see what’s really going on with us internally. Are we trying too hard and hurting our bodies? If so, can we let go of that and maybe let go of the idea that things need to be ‘challenging’ all the time? Can we find a softness? A beautiful, releasing “Ahhhhh” breath? Can we let the fire come into the body but not into our minds? Mmmmmm.

Softening has taught me a few lessons in my practice that have also (inevitably) wiggled their way off my mat too. I’ve recently been truly appreciating the absolutely uncomfortable (and totally necessary) practice of ‘sitting with intensity’. Urgh. Have you ever had an urge to say or do something and then having done said thing, later when the feeling has cooled, wished you had just waited it out? I’ve done it a LOT. But just like I can be in a pretty intense bent knee balance (thanks Nicky! ), and totally ride it out, I can see that I can also learn to ride out intense impulses. Is this easy? ABSOLUTELY NOT! It’s really hard! But it seems to also get easier with repetition. Sitting with the fire of a burning impulse and watching it cool off can be extremely hard work, but wow… will it make you surprised at your own strength. It takes a lot of it to stay soft in the face of another’s hardness, or a challenging situation. But later, when the fire has burnt out….I’m always so thankful I chose to sit with it and soften.

I’m loving softness….there is something so deliciously warming about softening into my body, softening into life. And the strange thing about it? It seems to open things up way more than force ever could.

With love & softness!

Adéle x