Anticipation

I don’t know if you can see them, but there are three tiny pea sprouts in this photo. They just came up yesterday! Every spring when I plant new seeds in the garden I feel a mixture of anticipation and slight anxiety. I expect and am excited for new plants of all kinds, but am nervous that I did something incorrectly and that the seeds will not sprout or not grow to their full potential.

I sometimes feel this mixture of anticipation and slight anxiety when I am leading a group of yoga students into a more challenging posture of some kind. I expect that they all have the potential within them to find their own full expression of the pose, but I am slightly anxious that I haven’t given them enough useful tools to get there.

At this point I remember two things. I possess the skills to lead students into yoga postures of all kinds; I need to trust that experience and knowledge. More importantly, postural yoga practice is not about the final pose, it’s about the process of moving into it, experiencing it, and moving out of it. It’s about the time we spend on the path and the things we learn and experience while on the path. It’s not about the end of the road. At this point anxiety melts away and the excitement of anticipation takes hold!