Right now you are changing. Skin cells, red blood cells, white blood cells, colon cells are shifting, either growing or dying, and this change is essential to life. On average, a skin cell lives about two to three weeks, red blood cells for about four months, colon cells for a mere four days, while white blood cells live for more than a year. There are between 50 and 75 trillion cells in the human body, each with their own life span!
As one of my teachers has said, “Life is the ultimate educational experience.” We are designed to change and evolve, down to the cellular level, until the day we die. Evolution is the opposite of stagnation:
Stagnant (adj.): 1) not flowing or running; 2) stale or foul; 3) lack of development, advancement, or progressive movement
To evolve and change, means we take the time to sit with what is, and to parse out where we are making assumptions about our experiences.
For the past few weeks, I have been sitting with my anxiety. This rising tide of anxious feelings is being fed by many things–not least of which are global health concerns. But, a large life-change is also imminent for me–picking up and moving a household out of state is huge. Looking for the right home has proven to be challenging. And, my work has been to sit with my ideas of what home should feel or look like.
Change brings with it many unknowns, and learning to be comfortable with not knowing everything isn’t always easy! Structure, everything in its place, a place for everything, feels good, safe, secure. The truth is loss of structure, or massive changes in our safety nets, can make us feel very ungrounded, as though we are in free-fall. But, what if we flipped our perspective about ground?
“The bad news is you’re falling through the air, nothing to hang on to, no parachute. The good news is, there’s no ground.”
–Chögyam Trungpa
What if no ground meant we could relax? Without fear of a hard landing, we are free to find our authentic selves, beyond the rules, walls, and attachments we have built to keep us ‘safe.’ For me–right now–no ground means shifting from the urgent driving need to already be there in my new home (trying to shortcut the process), to living in the moment, relaxing into the frustration, and sitting with and loving all the questions.
“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue.”
–Rainer Maria Rilke
In between who we were and who we are going to be, we find out exactly who we are. What does lack of growth look like in your life? Where do you resist change? What might you discover if you dug down into the hard-packed ground of your garden? Till the soil, plant seeds, and watch what emerges…..
See you on the mat!
Claudia Fountain Fitness + Yoga 