Root Down To Rise Up
Root Down To Rise Up
My body is in downward facing dog. For the non yogi readers, this is a common inverted position in yoga where your body is in the shape of a ‘V’, your hands are extended in front of you, your ears are between your bicepts, and your feet are shoulder distance apart with your butt in the air and your chest pressing to the ground. Downward facing dog is typically a part of the flow sequences which translates into, I’m in downward facing dog a lot during any given yoga class.
Back to the mat..there’s me in downward facing doc. It’s about mid way through the class, so I can feel the heat building in my shoulders and my heels are a little closer to the ground. My muscles are a little tired but it’s an exciting time because of the building energy that is happening inside my body.
My yoga instructor gives us the next move in the sequence. She uses Sanskirt, which I know by ear but I would not know how to reciete here. Basically, she has us raise our right leg, and then place our foot by our right hand in preperation to transition into the next move. I know what’s coming. She’s going to put us into cresent moon. It similar to a lung but with a yoga twist. For me, when I’m in cresent moon, it highlights, all of my insecurities.
It’s hard for me to go deep into the lung, partially because of joints that don’t want to go, but mostley because I’m scared my legs cannot hold all of the weight I have put on. In this pose, I can feel my belly overtop of my thigh. I can feel the little ripple of back fat. I sense the weakness in my thighs and below that I remember how strong my legs use to be. I’m wobbly in this pose and struggle to stay in that position. I feel uneasy in the pose when I want to feel strong. I feel exposed and weak.
I am now very aware of these feelings in this pose. In my journey to increase my awareness of my very human side and live a conscious life where I welcome more of my spirit and whole side into the light, I recognize the emotions and my fear. I breath into them and send love. While this practice sooths me, it doesn’t help those feelings dissipate much.
Just as my hands start to hoover above the ground and I start to raise my torso up into cresent lung, fear and insecurity still very much with me, my yoga instructor’s powerful voice pierces through my internal negotiating…”ROOT DOWN TO RISE UP!”
This is a a phrase she uses every time we go into cresent lung. These words, this phrase, is so incredible powerful and supportive to me. The words flood my body, muting the fear and insecurity with something that is much bigger, much more whole, a more important truth about what I am capable of than my fractured negotiations coming into the pose would have lead me to believe. 5 words, spoken in such a way, at a key time, from one spiritual being to another.
Root down to rise up. 5 words that express an incredible powerful idea.
Root down into your soul and rise up from that place of nurturing and power.
Root down to connect with the universal wisdom that is beyond yourself and will support your rising.
Release into those roots and surrender to the rising that happens not from sheer willpower and grit but from being present in this moment, in this body, with this group of people, with these powerful words delivered by a very present teacher.
Andrea Peer — User Experience Strategist, Researcher, PhD in HCI, World Explorer, Entrepreneur, Writer, Educator, Synthesizer — Living creatively and consciously
https://www.linkedin.com/in/andreapeer/
OraDelphi — Tech Whisperer for Integrated Wellness Entrepreneurs https://oradelphi.com
