Structure Without Rigidity

Living on the upward spiral, for me, means finding practices that are most helpful to living a happy, healthy, and joyful life. Then repeating them on the regular. I'm big on creating and sustaining good habits and for that I need structure.

But I also keep learning, structure doesn't have to mean being rigid.

Lately, I've been reflecting on a few lines from a song called, "Buildings and Bridges" by Ani DiFranco. It goes:

Buildings and bridges

Are made to bend in the wind

To withstand the world

That's what it takes

All that steel and stone

Are no match for the air, my friend

What doesn't bend breaks

What doesn't bend breaks

It's true that what doesn't bend breaks.

One habit I have joyfully fallen back on lately is doing a daily yoga practice. For about 10 days, that looked like attending a 26&2 class. After a few days into this practice, I was feeling great. But shortly after, I became attached to making that particular practice my daily habit.

However, on Sunday, one of my best friends was in town and we decided to go kayaking. This took most of the day and afterwards we were exhausted. I didn't even post my blog until late into the evening. But instead of feeling like, "Oh well, I guess I'm not doing my yoga practice today," I shifted my perspective. That day, knowing I wouldn't do a yoga class, I got creative and saw yoga in other things. For example, I used what I've learned from yoga to address my mental stress around "breaking" my habit. My "yoga" for the day become being with what is: both that I wouldn't do my normal class, but instead that I got to kayak with one of my best friends. In that perspective, what was there to complain about? Sometimes being with what is, truly, can allow you to see that what you perceive as "bad" or "wrong" only appears that way from one perspective.

On Monday, I also missed attending a yoga class. It was the 4th of July and there weren't many classes to be had. Plus, the 4th has become difficult day for me emotionally. So I saw my practice on this day as being with what is, all the feelings, and finding joy even in the smallest things.

With this reframing, I came into today feeling like I hadn't broken my streak of doing yoga everyday, but instead I expanded what a yoga practice meant to me. This meant I didn't have to fight so much inertia to get on my mat today. My body was craving the physical practice.

Once again, I let myself think outside the box. It was going to be challenging to make it to a class today, but I had some time in the morning. So I instead found a 45-minute video on youtube and did a physical practice with that. I've been wanting to explore a regular astanga practice (similar to 26&2 in the sense that it's a standard series of postures, a consistency that I've come to like).

Now that I've done that, I feel like I have enough options moving forward to maintain some structure of a daily yoga practice while also leaving room for adaptability.

What's something that give you structure in your life right now? How can you introduce some adaptability while still maintaining the structure in a way that works for you?

Remember that what doesn't bend, breaks. Allow yourself to bend. Change shape. Sway in the wind.