You’re moving right along, right on time. The kids have been dropped off at school. Lorde’s new song is on the radio, you crank it up. Woo hoo! You’ve got two solid hours of “me time” until you’ve got to be somewhere else. As you drive, you start to daydream about what you’re going to do with two full hours… read a book maybe? Look stuff up on line? Go shopping—for you…? Then it happens. You enter the freeway on-ramp and traffic is at a standstill. The Lorde song is over, and“All About That Bass” comes on. Again. You shut it off. It was all going so well… You realize this is going to cut at least half an hour off of your precious time, maybe more. Your blood pressure raises as your hands grip the steering wheel. You look in the rear view mirror and the emergency vehicle lane seeking an exit strategy but there’s no way out. You’re stuck. Now you’re faced with a choice: let this obstacle ruin your day or just surrender to it.
Surrender. In our western society, that word implies “giving up”… We see an image of someone standing with hands up in defeat. But in Sanskrit, the word surrender is slightly different. Ishvara Pranidhana. It translates to “surrendering to a higher power”.
Those cars, like weather —or the unpredictable nature of friends and family— are external forces. We can’t control them. But we can control our reaction to them. The first thing we have to do is let go.
The same thing happens on the mat. We resist the poses that challenge us. Instead of greeting the challenge like a gift, we dread it like rush hour traffic. You were fine in Trikonasana until cued into Ardha Candrasana (Half Moon). Muscles you weren’t using for the asana begin to fill with tension as your mind becomes flooded with all kinds of noise- I hate this one, my balance is horrible, my legs are hurting, I’m going to fall…
You have the same choice here as you did in getting on the freeway. Embrace the reminder to let go by beginning with a deep breath. Release unnecessary tension like the clenching of your jaw or the hardened gaze of your eyes. The traffic and the asana are only transitory, but the way you learn to handle those challenges can shape the way you live your life.
When you surrender to the things you can’t control, you are not giving up, you are not defeated. In fact, it is the opposite. You have said to the higher power, Okay, you can throw this at me. And I will handle it with grace. If you fall, you will get back up again. If you are stuck in traffic you will eventually get out. If your plans are altered because of weather or a late friend, you seize another opportunity.
Indian yoga master BKS Iyengar says, “Through surrender, the aspirant’s ego is effaced, and…grace…pours down upon him like a torrential rain.”
Every obstacle is a gift, a gentle reminder to let go. It is in the surrendering of our tension back to the Source that we gain greater strength, a deepening of the breath, or stability to our imbalance. It is in the surrender that we defeat our own ego and regain our humility.
Releasing the grip, you are moving again. Breathing, and moving. Just a few feet on the asphalt. Leg back down on the mat. Rising up to Tadasana (Mountain Pose) and standing tall and proud. Undefeated.
