Who or where would I be if I just released the struggle?
via Pinterest.
By Meagan McCrary.
My overarching intention as of late has been to find more ease. I don’t recall making the cognitive decision to make finding more ease my intention; rather it seemed to choose me.
Sitting cross-legged with my hands in prayer, grounding in child’s pose before class begins, standing in Tadasana with my eyes closed; whenever the teacher opens the space to set our own intention, the words Find More Ease lightly tap on my heart.
Find. More. Ease.
Because the truth is, I struggle. Sometimes more than others, but I struggle. I struggle with the way things should be, what I should be doing or what I should have done differently, or better, or long before now.
I struggle against my own body, hating the cellulite on the back of my thighs. I struggle against my own emotions, angry that I have so much pain and sadness inside. I struggle against the self-negating thoughts of my own mind. Sometimes, on cloudy days, I even struggle to get out of bed in the morning, knowing I’m going to spend the day struggling to get everything on my list done.
I’d like to think we all struggle. Perhaps not all struggling against the same stuff and to the same extent as others, but we do all struggle with our own bullshit. Don’t be fooled by the façade of cheerfulness, productivity, and success. Sometimes I think that the people who appear to have it all, to glide through life unscathed, who seem so perfect and happy and together from the outside — sometimes I think those people probably struggle the most.
Me, I struggle with the best of them. Whew, I said it, it’s out there: I struggle.
Just admitting that aloud invites more ease, I deeply exhale without realizing I was holding my breath. I let go just a little bit and experience a moment of ease. I don’t have to pretend to be perfect, to have it all together, to be this ideal version of me. Almost 33, I’m utterly tired of fighting with myself, tired of comparing myself to others, tired of judging and keeping score, tired of trying to live up to some story of success I never agreed to, tired of worrying excessively over the unnecessary, tired of forcing myself, my life.
I’m just tired of it.
However, it isn’t easy for me to release the struggle. This is how I’ve operated for thirty years. Sometimes, I feel like I’ve been in a state of fight or flight since I was seven. It’s how I know to be, and do, and succeed out in the world. I’m comfortable with struggling, despite all of the discomfort it causes.
Therefore, the intention to find more ease becomes an active practice. Surrender is by no means passive. I have to want to let go of the struggle; the desire to find more ease has to be strong enough to override my conditioned response to fight against what is.
Newsflash: Life isn’t meant to be such a struggle.
For whatever reason, at some point along this crazy time/space continuum, our society made the agreement that the best things are worth fighting for. We become so tangled in the struggle that we can no longer see the bigger picture. Sometimes we even forget what we were actually fighting for to begin with; we forget to check in with our hearts to determine if what we are striving for is truly what we desire for ourselves.
Stop and ask yourself: Is it really meant to be this hard? This much of a battle? Chances are it’s not; most things, relationships, and circumstances aren’t supposed to be such a struggle. Life isn’t supposed to be such a struggle.
Then ask yourself: Who or where would I be if I just released the struggle?
We have to let go of the fight — surrender to what is, and go with the flow a bit more — to find more ease. We have to surrender our need for control, for things to work out in such a way; we have to surrender to the reality of our experiences instead of clinging to the they way things are supposed to be. We have to surrender to our emotions, accepting and allowing them to move through us, knowing full well that arguing against them only fuels and perpetuates the discomfort. We have to surrender to the path that we are one, to your own process and accept wherever we are at in our own unique journeys.
We have to surrender to find more ease.
Surrendering doesn’t mean we have to give up, but rather, give in from a place of acceptance. In Tantra yoga philosophy, denying what is, demanding it be different, or the inability to accept life as it presents itself, are what lead to prolonged suffering. Pain is a necessary part of life, however, suffering is a choice.
Because the reality of it is that what is happening is what’s happening. We may not like it, it may be completely unjust, but it is what is so we have to accept it.
We have to accept our circumstances, our emotions, our relationships, our bodies, our yoga practice, and all of ourselves as they are to move beyond struggle — to find more ease on our mats and in our lives.
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Meagan McCrary is a 500 E-RYT and writer with a passion for helping people find more comfort, clarity, compassion and joy on the mat and in their lives. She is the author of Pick Your Yoga Practice: Exploring and Understanding Different Styles of Yoga, an encyclopedia of modern yoga systems. You can find her blog, teaching schedule and latest offerings at MeaganMcCrary.com, as well as on Facebook , Twitter and Instagram.
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