Effort & Ease
A segment of the weekly newsletter is a weekly theme and this blog post is an enhancement to that section. Each weekly theme is an invitation and encouragement meant to help the reader better connect to themselves. Please note that the selected themes can be reflected upon at any time and are not limited to the week the themes are shared and published.
Theme: Effort & Ease
I went to my first in-person yoga class in over a year last week and, during the class, the teacher talked about finding “the balance between effort and ease.” It was an invitation to become aware of one’s effort and allow in more ease during a moment of challenge in the practice
This week’s theme is an extension of that invitation and an encouragement to look at those things, people, and experiences that feel effortful and those things, people, and experiences that feel easeful. While there may be hard work involved in the effort, ease can be a companion to the effort that allows you to slow down, breathe, and stay present. When there is ease in the effort, the opportunity for flow is created as the greater the ease, the less the resistance.
Practices for Reflection
Start by taking a five deep breaths to ground yourself. Then, reflect on any or all of the following questions:
Where does the balance of effort and ease lie for you?
What role does ease play in your efforts?
How can you bring more ease into your efforts?
What in your life would benefit from more ease? More effort?
What are your practices for bringing in elements of ease to your life?
Personal Reflection
“Find the balance between effort and ease.” Those words arrived just when I needed them in the yoga class; the effort was there and I was feeling the hard work of that effort. Those words where an invitation to become curious as to what I could do to bring in a feeling of ease that would make the effort bearable. I couldn’t stop thinking about “effort & ease” the rest of the day and it prompted me to wonder where else I could bring in more ease to settle the experience of a hard effort. I thought about how this applied to my running, my family, my friendships, and basically anything or anyone I interacted with. It became not a question of where I would benefit from better balancing the effort and the ease, but how I could better balance the effort and the ease.
The answer to how came in two parts: (1) deep breathing to pause the mental chatter and settle the nervous system; and (2) trying my best to not take things personally. The first one is easy enough, right? The breathing creates space for me to be in the moment, without fighting against it. The second one is the harder one as it involves detaching myself from the experience and/or the outcome; this is about creating space for me to observe the moment as it is objectively. Sometimes the effort feels hard because I think I am the only one struggling with the effort. When I step back enough and become the observer, I am able to see that others also struggle with the effort, thus proving that the effort isn’t taking it out on me personally. The effort isn’t out to get me; the effort is, if anything, an invitation to having more compassion and empathy for myself, the experience, and those around me.
