Uncomfortable...

How can one get comfortable with being uncomfortable?!? Somehow I've done it.

Any time in my life I've noticed that I'm feeling complacent and that I'm not growing, or even a little stifled in my growth I often notice that I've settled into a very comfortable place and sometimes I just allow myself to be there. There's nothing wrong with comfort. But comfort also can mean that the energy is stagnant and energy is meant to move, when it's not moving that is when disease and melancholy set in.

Oddly enough though I seem to be getting used to being uncomfortable so that presents a new set of problems. Maybe then staying long enough to allow comfort to come into play is the way to go? If comfort becomes uncomfortable then maybe that's what to do, embrace it and allow it in so that you can see that it's quite okay too.

I seem to be in a period of growth, and I am comfortable here even though I don't speak the language and the winter is here. I think I tend to think of India as my place that I grow in, but growth happens wherever you tend the roots properly. So here it goes.

I'm in a new place with my practice, this summer it went over the top with ease and now that ease has lessened a little bit, not gotten hard again, but just with the different diet here and the colder weather it gets more uncomfortable again so I have to adjust my approach to it, and I am. But now I'm embracing it more fully and still able to do the full practice more often than I would have in the winters before, I often lost much of my practice back in the US during this time of year. I'm grateful for this summer in Mysore where I got to a new level of embracing doing my practice daily, maybe every so often having a day where it was shorter but that's okay. I hate to be dogmatic about anything, so I have to not let myself get that way too, the other extreme.

I used to be so hard on myself if I didn't do my full practice daily that I just wasn't going to get enlightened and blah, blah, blah... So now at 47 I embrace taking a shorter practice every so often, or even an extra day off. What's funny is that as soon as I stopped judging myself for this I then find myself practicing fully almost every day. Odd things our human minds are...

Also there is all this stuff going on within the Ashtanga online community around Pattabhi giving inappropriate adjustments and all these older students are coming out saying it. And so I've not been commenting, and not commenting is harder for me that speaking my mind. It's very uncomfortable to not do so for me, but who am I to judge these women and their experiences, or perceptions of what happened? I had my experience with Guruji and can't imagine, but I also had a moola bandha adjustment from him that helped to change my practice, and can see that that sort of adjustment to the western mind would be inappropriate but again, I don't know their experience so am staying back from any input my mind could add.

Then there's the blogs I've written lately that are causing a bit of a stir and I've gotten lots of support and messages from people about it. And the point of writing them was that I was letting go of it, so I've ended up talking about all this stuff far more than I wanted to, because I'd already worked past things. So here, see? I said I'm too comfortable with being uncomfortable and now I'm talking about it more so that discomfort will still be there. Hahahaha, god we humans are a mess aren't we?!?

I'm happy, that is what's important to me. I have a decent place to stay, I love the students and they challenge me daily, they accept when I challenge them daily which I also love, Star Wars' next instalment comes out Friday so I've got tickets to see it three times this weekend (yes, that's actually less than I normally see it at opening), I'm making connections to people here, students and others, and really to me connection is the number one thing.

Connection within is of utmost importance in my daily life. That sustains me and helps me stay my gregarious self while still being loving and seeing all things in all people as parts of me to be integrated. But also connection with those outside myself, or rather as being perceived as being outside myself, is important to me. If I'm finding this it tells me that my inner alignment is going well also, and I'm finding this here a lot. Great, deep, connections with quite a few people here.

With the end of the year coming up people are starting to write their end of the year manifestos talking about how the year changed them, or was awful, or was wonderful, and maybe a post like that is coming soon from me, but for now I'll consider only now. And now I'm good, feeling happy, feeling fulfilled (which is probably the least held in high regard, but is the most important of emotions) and feeling like I'm getting to share all this stuff I've been working on for so long and finally am finding an audience for it that it resonates with. So these last two months in Germany have been great, and oddly enough I've spent 6 months of this year in Germany, and 6 months in India, wow. Odd to think of this. I can't wait to get back to India of course, but I'm also not so unhappy being here where I am, and that is a nice feeling.

But good, and when its all good what more can you want in your life? You can want it to be great, but if you leave room for the darker stuff also that needs to be embraced and allow for the better feelings to emerge, good is a good place to be.