Effort and ease
Ah, the elusive “balance” in life. Simultaneously maintaining and resisting opposing forces. Engaging our lives with peace and self-control instead of swinging around from extreme to extreme. Actively participating in life instead of stagnant stillness as the movement happens around us.
The balance of effort and ease is one of the core teachings in the practice of yoga. My mat is a sacred space. I go there to learn about myself, because as I observe the way I move through a yoga practice, it’s always a little microcosm of the way I move through life.
Some days I’m in my head complaining about how uncomfortable it is or how much I want to stop. I’m rushing pose to pose, thinking about where I have to go next, and just trying to get through to the end. Clearly this could be about hot yoga just as easily as it could describe my experience in traffic, the person who won’t respond to my texts, etc. etc.
Other days on my mat I’m lost in self-observation—I create space to step out of my thoughts and feelings and observe the internal dialogue that normally monopolizes my mental, physical, and spiritual energy. I learn self-compassion and grace in these moments, realizing how much energy I use having the same conversations with myself on repeat.
And other days, I’m just there. This, for me, is the peak of my physical yoga practice. These are the days I walk out and feel like a shift happened. It’s not about getting into any specific shape or pose—it’s about being present in the sensations and movements of my breath and body. It’s the moment when I realize pressing down and away through my hands in down dog creates opening and ease in my wrists and shoulders. It’s the moment when I remember to breathe in tree pose and one exhale at a time guides me deeper and deeper into a one-legged backbend. It’s contracting my core muscles down to the bone to find grace as I kick from crow into a low plank.
These are the days I’m tuned into the balance of effort and ease.
Effort in my breath creates ease in a deep squat. Effort in my core creates ease in my tense hips when I fold into half-pigeon. Effort in my feet creates ease in my knee and hip joints in warrior poses.
And from here I do love learning new poses and gaining new abilities, not just with a sense of wonder for my body and accomplishment for new skills, but because they are new spaces for exploration of effort and ease.
We bring effort in one area to introduce ease in another. This is the economy of yoga—and it’s all of life.
Effort for its own sake can be a helpful experience, but more often than not, when most of us humans are putting effort into a particular area, it’s because we believe that it will bring ease in another area. We make constant bets with where we put our effort—looking for the most payoff for our work.
But I also believe every one of us has an area (or two, or seven) of life that is effortful and isn’t bringing ease with it. We’re working and spinning our wheels and trying and trying and pounding on doors…and it’s not bringing any payoff.
We’re working so hard to do or prove or control something in our lives and it’s all effort and no ease.
OR. We’re working so hard to ignore or numb or avoid something in our lives and it’s all effort and no ease.
Our invitation here is to stop. Rest. Come back to yourself and be honest with where you are. You are sitting, or walking, or driving—wherever you are you are breathing and you are feeling and knowing and moving. Where is your effort?
I tend to put effort into figuring things out because I believe its false promises of ease once I know the answers. Understanding seems like it will offer an easy solution to pain, but it’s often a way to avoid instead of accept the experience of pain.
Analysis is a personal pain-avoidance mechanisms of choice, but alas, it’s not the only one. At my least healthy I put effort into distracting myself from difficulty and emotional pain because it feels like ease.
But it’s imitation ease. It’s not lasting. It’s a quick numbing and a disengaging from the potential strength and growth that could come from pain.
The invitation is to bring effort into parts of our lives that will open space for ease in the spaces of resistance. Effort in creating healthy habits, routines, secure and supportive relationships makes room to release the tightness and tension in the anxiety and grief we’ve held in our bodies and hearts for long enough.