Tuesday, June 30, 2015

If Your Life Is Feeling Unbalanced, You Might Just Need to Adjust Your Eyes


During the past few months in my Monday night yoga class, we've been working on mastering some poses that involve standing on one leg. The eagle pose. Hand-to-big toe. The dancer's pose. Although I'm relatively skilled at holding my body steady, I have been known to topple over. Even when holding poses that require both feet on the ground...

"Remember your drishti," my teacher reminds us as she passes between our mats.

"Drishti" is a Sanskrit word that describes a focusing point. By letting your gaze rest on a particular point, it's much easier to hold your balance.

In class, I've found that zeroing in on knots in the floorboards seems to work better for me than trying to find drishtis on the wall.

It's not just about finding a focusing point, it's about finding the right one.

Outside of class, this also rings true.

Maintaining balance in our personal lives depends on finding the right points of focus.

We can put our attention on certain tasks or circumstances or emotions and feel like we're going to crash headfirst into the floor every day. Yet, if we shift our gaze to other aspects of our lives, we find our balanced stances so much easier to hold; harmony so much easier to come by.

When I consider where my drishtis should fall on a daily basis, I think about things like gratitude,  abundance, love and communion with nature. Those are the focuses that keep me strong, no matter how many toes I have gripping the ground.

What are the focusing points that make you feel most balanced? And what can you do to keep your eye trained in their direction?