Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes by Gabe Hopp

Change is an inevitable part of being a human in the world and we are all subject to the ever-changing nature of reality. Patanjali has tons of teachings on this, among them aparigraha (the practice of not clinging), abhinivesha (the natural inclination to hang tight to the status quo) and parinama (the transformation or change that occurs when you move out of suffering and into ease). But, like pretty much any yoga teaching, just because there’s precedent and lots of representation, it doesn’t make it easy. At all. In fact, let’s look at the concept of abhinivesha a little more closely. This concept is one of the klesha(s) or the root causes of human suffering. Abhinivesha is the idea that we don’t want things to change because we inherently do not want to die. We are naturally inclined to cling to aliveness. Patanjali even says that this experience overwhelms even very wise people. So, baked into the core of our being is that we DON’T LIKE CHANGE.

Usually in our early days of practicing yoga asana, there are a lot of experiences of positive change. More likely, of course, when we dedicate ourselves diligently to practice. We make a lot of strides. Our body changes in many dramatic and beneficial ways. We feel A LOT better. We attribute everything good in our lives to our yoga practice (kind of a joke, but not entirely). At about year 5 or so, that quick-change model begins to morph into more of a subtle-change model. You have made the big initial strides and now things shift much more subtly, sometimes even just energetically. It still feels really amazing to be a practitioner, but it has become more normalized in your life. And, of course, all of this depends on how much time we are able to dedicate to practice, how hard we work, what styles of yoga we are practicing, and the backdrop of an ever-aging physical body.

If we are lucky, we continue to have the time and resources to keep up our practice. And at some point, we are going to see less and less change and shift into maintenance mode. Things largely stay the same. Or, maybe they backslide. Maintaining a consistent physical practice of yoga is truly challenging when we are parenting, working, traveling, making ends meet, etc.

Lately I have noticed that poses that I worked really hard to achieve and came relatively easily to me for many years are coming less easily. My expectation that I can do them hasn’t quite caught up with the reality of my body as it is these days. Yesterday I chose a really difficult peak pose, an arm balance that takes a ton of work, but that I can usually find my way to. And it just wasn’t there. No amount of effort could make it so. It could have simply been an off-day or the fact that I was talking while I was trying, but it struck me that it could be the next level of change for me. It’s unrealistic to think that I can do big-time arm-balances inevitably and extremely humbling to admit that they may no longer be in my repertoire. What if it’s time to accept the next great period of change?