Soft and Strong
In yoga, we learn how to be simultaneously soft and strong. To hold poses without creating tension, because of our strength. We learn to engage the right muscles so that each can do the job they were created to do. We learn that contracting certain muscles allows others to release and extend.
This delicate balance of soft and strong is the season I am in right now. It’s always been easy for me to be soft. Sometimes, I am so soft and supple that the shape of me gets lost in whatever container I’m in at the time. I have been a soft place to land, a soft voice of encouragement, and a soft silence when I don’t know what to say.
It is good to be soft. But it is also good to be strong.
It’s the strength we have in certain areas that allow us to be soft in others. It’s the strength we build through years of trial and error, failure and success, work and rest that allow us to step into the container of new seasons without losing our own shape.
I have to work hard to be strong. It is not my natural inclination. Sometimes I have to show strength in one area to continue to be a soft place for people to land. Sometimes, I have to show strength and resolve so that others can experience healing and encouragement.
Sometimes, in learning to be strong…I will forget to be soft. I am learning to have grace for myself in these moments. I am learning the postures, the flow, the rhythm. I am building new strength.
Sometimes I may attempt something I have not yet built the strength for…or at least the endurance…and I may fall out of a challenging pose. I may even injure myself.
But I am showing up to class. I know that sometimes I’ll fall and look weak – or even foolish, but I am showing up to class.
“Be messy and complicated and afraid and show up anyway. All the good and all the beautiful in the world is created by people who show up before they are ready” -Glennon Doyle
Photo by Igor Ovsyannykov on Unsplash
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