Swim, Fishy...Swim!

What is the difference between effort and surrender?

This week I heard it described like this:

Imagine a fish swimming in a river. When the fish is in the current, she is surrendered.  She is letting the flow of water carry her.  And if and when she ever loses that current, then (and only then) she uses her effort, to find her way back.

Her effort, her will, is what she calls upon when she's fallen out of the stream.  When life starts to get hard, get rocky, when it feels like nothing is moving and certainly nothing is moving her...that is when effort is required.

And then, lucky fish, once she's reunited with the river's current, then she is carried.

And on and on it goes.

I love this description so much (lifted from an interview with Mark Nepo) because we hear so much about surrender.  Surrender is the thing we're all told we're looking for--or at least that's what our yoga teachers tell us and our books tell us and our wise friends tell us (they tell us other things, too)--and often they're right.  Often letting go is what's needed.  Often it's needed because we live in a world where nearly every other influence in our lives is urging us toward the opposite.  Towards more, towards faster, towards harder, towards sweat, towards effort.  Towards multi-tasking our effort.  And so, the encouragement towards, sheesh, softening some of that, is good.

But, what about the times when surrender is not the answer?  Are we really just meant to go from splashing wildly, or worse, swimming in panicked circles, certain the current is there somewhere...to just being lazy fishies, letting the water take us where it will?

That doesn't seem right.

That would imply that the human system is flawed.  If surrender were the only solution, if the only thing which existed other than surrender was a kind of aggravated repetitive belly flop...that would imply that there is nothing to be done.  We either give up, or we suffer.  And I just think that the human mind and heart are too complex and too gorgeous (sorry), to write them off simply as the agents of our own destruction.

But if you think of a wise fish...of a little guy who finds himself suddenly out of the flow of water...what is he going to do?  I don't think he's going to freak out.  I don't think he's going to start slamming his fish body against the rocks along the bottom of the river because he's just so upset that this has happened to him, yet again, and all his other little fishy friends seem to be doing just fine thank you very much and why the heck can't he ever catch a break?!  No, he's going to quiet his little fishy mind (remember, he's a wise fish), he's going to stick his little fish nose and little fish ears (do fish have ears?) into the water, and he's going to use his will to start his little tail and fins a flippin', and he's going to swim himself back to that current.

And when he's there, he'll know he's there, whether or not his eyes are open (whether or not he even HAS eyes), because things will suddenly get...easier.

Ahhh.  Exhale. 

He'll know he's in the current, because he'll be able to fold his little fins against his fat little rainbow-scale sides, and coast.  He'll know he's there because he'll be moving with the river.  He'll know he's there because he'll suddenly be able just to enjoy the ride.

And if ever the time comes when he falls, one more time, out of the grace of the river, he'll know he has his effort, his will, and his good sense...to guide him back.

Working. Less. Hard.

Oh, Shanti-towners...it has been one of those days.  One of those it's too hot in my apartment and I'm too grumpy so I'm just going to go ahead and cry a little curled up in our bedroom because it's the coolest room in the house and I have a million things to do but I don't really want to do any of them and what on earth am I doing and why can't I just be out in the world being productive for gods sakes Stephen Colbert has formed a goddamn SuperPAC at least he's saying something real about the world around him and what on earth is wrong with me ANYHOW days.

You know the kind of day I'm talking about, right?

(oh god, please say yes.)

After a productive (and relatively short) bout of this fetal-ing in our only slightly cooler bedroom, I began to think about what was bothering me (I won't bore you with the details) and what I wanted (again, I'll spare you), and I kept coming back to two of my favorite words...letting go.

Ugh.

If you have ever read a single post I have ever written about anything you can bet that in SOME way somewhere in that post there is some kind of talk of letting go.  It is my Excalibur.  It is my hero's journey.  It is my f-ing nemesis.

Because, here's the problem for us overachiever A-student types...you can not Work Hard to let go.  These two things are actually opposite things.

And as I was sitting on our bed, now all white for summer, having been stripped of its heavy burgundy blankets, I started thinking about how often I TRY to let go.  How often I work and work and work to surrender, sometimes working hard enough that I actually feel, for a short period of time, that I've succeeded.  But how tenuous that hold is, because it's all held up by effort.  How the slightest wind could knock me off-balance and back into the state I have been trying to cover up with all the letting-go talk.  You know the state I'm talking about?  The honest one?  The one that's not so pretty?

And I thought about what real letting go is.  I thought about all the times in my life when I have truly actually let something go--about the feeling of relief that comes from that, the feeling of mourning maybe for what is lost and then the feeling of ensuing possibility, the feeling of solidity, the feeling (like it is with any real change of perspective) that one has arrived at something infinitely more true and more lasting then all the efforting that came before.  And I thought about how you can't fake a state like that.

How if it's going to come, it's going to come from a place of ease, and not from a place of muscle.

One of my favorite alignment instructions, whether I'm teaching a class or taking one, is to soften your fingers.  It's  a very sneaky way of encouraging people to release into a pose, because, for whatever reason, if your fingertips are relaxed, it's much more difficult for the rest of your body to be tense and "trying".  And when you're not over-doing it, when you're not clenching your jaw and reaching like your life depended on it, the pose starts to open in this incredible way.  It sort of reveals itself to you.  And you might find yourself making adjustments the teacher hasn't even touched upon, because in that state of openness, the natural wisdom of your body starts to shine through.  Why?  Because some part of you (usually not your brain) knows that you're sticking your ribs out in a weird way and it just doesn't feel good. And that part of you (usually without much help from your brain) wants you to feel good.  But until you start to relax, that part of you (the I-want-you-to-feel-better part) hasn't got much lee-way.

And if that is true in my practice, then it is for sure going to be true in my life.

So, Shanti-towners, the hypothesis I present to you is:  maybe that problem you're trying to solve, that project you're trying to finish, that magic you're trying to make come true--maybe it could use a little chilling out.  Maybe you could try on some relaxation for size.  But, not the fake kind, Shanti-towners.  Not the kind that comes from the mind as stern little directives to all the rest of all your systems--I mean the kind that comes from deep inside.  The kind that makes you sigh...the kind that gets you up from your mid-day fetal position and back into the world...

In a nutshell, Shanti Towners, just soften your fingers...and see what happens.

Effort.

While speaking to a dear friend about a certain tendency I have (both in life and in art) to get caught up in my own feelings and fears about "how well I am doing", she offered me the following analogy: (oh wise woman that she is)...if I were sitting here with you, she said, and all I was thinking about was how best to advise you, what the right thing to say was, what the best way to say it was, if I was helping you enough or in the right way...I wouldn't have all the ideas and images and feelings that I am having now. And I wouldn't be here with you.

Favorite teacher Bryn quoted Osho the other day regarding effort...in a nutshell: Effort might get you to New Delhi, but it won't get you to the infinite.

And yesterday in class, a newer teacher, one whom I never taken from before, speaking on ahimsa (non-violence): make a vow to stop harming yourself, she said, and take all of that energy that you have been using every day to criticize and berate, and use it to do all those things you want to do, but beat yourself up for not having done already.

May we all give up just a little bit of effort today.

That's my wish for you.

Namaste,
YogaLia