​Over the years Hugh has had the privilege to meet many people who have shared different experiences and challenges whilst seeking support and restoration to re-find balance.

Some have been living with life-long chronic conditions where pain has diminished their everyday life, others have faced diagnoses of terminal illness or abrupt loss. Whether it’s a seismic shift or the everyday we are dealing with – the restless, the hot and searing, the lethargy that sinks inwards beneath the skin or the numbness of a black hole inside us, at some stage all of us find ourselves out of our depth and at sea with what we are facing.

​These changing tides of somatic experience and differing flows of emotion are a natural part of our life journey but so too is the healing that can restore balance.

Such is the interdependence of our experience that: to find healing we need to live our life and to find life we need to heal.  “What does it mean to live our life?” and “what do we need to heal?” 

We can all spend a lot of time re-working the past and speculating about the future, attempting to reinvent or invent what is beyond our control. These are very energy consuming activities and are addictive for our minds. They not only deplete us in our everyday life but create a false perspective on reality and turn our world upside down.  

These energy sapping ruminations of the mind can mean we are not fully present or appreciative of pleasant experiences be they personal or shared, too wrapped up in anxieties that may never happen or stuck in an emotional hangover that’s making us miserable. 

Emotional imbalance, with its fault finding, self-criticism and judgement, mean we develop habits of closing-down as a way of defending ourselves from the uncomfortable. We hold onto harshness, animosity, resentment, discontent and restlessness letting it wear us down. It takes us away from being generous and kind with ourselves leading to increasing exhaustion or an unsustainable rush and then a crash.  

These experiences point us towards what we’ve found to be the most important expression of healing, that is the restoration of energetic balance where tension dissolves and we return to feeling light and expansive, our energy flowing to its fullest capacity. It takes patience and courageous effort to learn to trust rather than tense to allow the healing that is natural for us to restore balance in this way.

​We need to experience how to be comfortable in ourselves to meet uncomfortable sensations and underlying patterns of tension rather than follow our habitual patterns of avoidance and pushing through or away. This allows us to reconnect with our loving and compassionate heart, opening-up with generosity to all the tight places where we have unknowingly rejected and abandoned ourselves in difficult moments. Holding ourselves softly in this way restores our energetic balance and helps us grow a relationship of love with ourselves, learning in each new moment to have the courage within to trust rather than tense whatever we are facing.  

As we give time and energy to our inner life like in this way, we can observe our reflexes to look outwardly for comfort, distraction or projection onto others soften and then at different times no longer arise. The invitation to keep trusting and not tensing is an open one for the whole of our life journey and we come to realise nothing is ever certain or fixed. and only this relationship can sustain, nourish and heal us. This constant change invites us over and over to find the natural healing we need to live our life, to grow a relationship of love with ourselves and so discover what it means to live our life.

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It can feel very personal when things we take for granted suddenly change. Many of us experience this through falling ill, grief, a change of circumstances or relationships and a multitude of other different situations. Recently for me, it came with a change in environment. 

Having arrived early in Leh in Ladhak to co-lead a retreat, I had allowed myself a few days to acclimatise. One of the challenges of being more than 11000 ft above sea level is activities you take for granted don’t happen in the same way. Whether it’s walking a few hundred metres which takes so much more effort or waking at 3am in the morning feeling there isn’t enough oxygen to breathe, your perspective is quickly reframed about simple movement, a usual night’s sleep and even the inhale and exhale that keeps you alive. It brings an enforced slowing down, and before long, every exertion prompts the reflection, is it necessary, can it be done more simply, or not at all?

As each day progressed, I found myself feeling much the same, and rather than acclimatising to the altitude, I was having to acclimatise to a new sense of limitation. Any temptation to ignore this and push through was soon dispelled by a body that wasn’t co-operating. What started as an inconvenience was gradually evolving into a teacher, and in the process, I noticed my mind becoming quieter, less scattered, more centred.

As the days moved on and the retreat started, I had been reflecting how this new experience was simply another opportunity/necessity in which to apply the principles of practice that are the bedrock of the Buddha’s teaching.
I realised that what I felt as a physical restriction, was actually an energetic one and if I kept making the effort to keep my mind free and move intentionally with the body’s vital energy, a new-found freedom of movement was possible in spite of the lower oxygen levels.  Whilst I was moving in a slower more considered way, none the less it felt effortless and light and there was a sense of space and ease in my mind and body.  My sense of limitation and frustration was a question of attitude, not altitude and once I recognised that they disappeared. 

At times of change like this we face a clearer view of the nature of reality the Buddha talked about; how impermanent our experience truly is and, how Dukkha feels - that sense of unease, dissatisfaction or suffering with experience that occurs whenever we are in a state of resistance about whatever is happening. All this points us towards practising a different way: a way of relating to ourselves in which we learn to meet resistance with patience, acceptance and love.

None of this is a rational learning but one which asks us to listen rather than solve and to soften around resistance however uncomfortable its manifestation. This is why our formal practice in the yoga and the meditation is all about how we relate to tension, how we meet its edges, how we grow our intuition and direct our energy to soften around these edges and keep smiling. As we do this we learn how to listen in to structures of support and make the effort needed to shift from our habitual states of resistance into a state of acceptance and love. 

Our practice can give us brief experiences where this happens; and when it does, we momentarily drop out of our habitual modes of thinking and doing, and recognise we are listening in a way that reveals a spacious freedom and lightness where previously we were caught up in tension and tightness. Each time this happens we experience release and a sense of uplift. This wholesome feeling builds confidence that the effort we are making is worth repeating and shows us we are not as stuck with the identity of tension and all the manifestations of Dukkha as we think.
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In this way we can re-orientate ourselves to encounter change with acceptance and love and begin to flow with life rather than against its current as the Buddha taught. As we investigate more and make the effort to listen in a way that opens us up to experience, we will find our teacher in many forms.

 
The practice of Yoga has come to mean many things to many people and is embraced widely for its wonderful physical benefits and regulation of our day to day mental health. For some this is sufficient as this experience of Yoga has fulfilled its purpose. For others, the physical postures can be an end to pursue in itself, expressed through ever more challenging and complex postures with the harnessing of physical discipline to execute them. Like many other forms of physical ability this requires both a mental development and discipline (often identified as mindfulness) coupled with intense physical development.

Whether we’re practicing to feel better or seeking to develop our physical capacity is this all Yoga and mindfulness have to offer? Is our Western emphasis on the physical aspects of yoga backed with an increasing emphasis on Western knowledge of anatomy and physiology particularly in reference to exercise changing our understanding and experience of these practices.

In the words of the Zen proverb, are we in danger of mistaking the pointing finger (our physical practice) for the moon (the nature of our mind and the world around us, our energetic connection, clear sightedness). Certainly we should look after our body and maintain our health as best as our circumstances allow, without that we won’t have the guiding finger encouraging us to look more deeply.  Beyond that our physical practice is there to point towards a wider truth and it’s our task to see for ourselves what it’s pointing at. As we re-orientate ourselves, we come to understand that technical excellence or symptom relief are not end points but by-products of the practice and then other important discoveries are made.

How do we look more deeply? 

This happens when our intention changes from development of our physical body towards development of our mind. Once we accept that our development is not outward but inward we start to experience our body in a different way as an essential part of this process. We find an energetic connection that links the leaning of our mind with our physical experience. As our mind moves, our body feels different. We practice not to dominate physically, but to listen so that our body becomes a map of our mind and we can move into each moment from a place of caring and compassionate presence that feels spacious, boundaryless. Gradually everything we experience shifts towards referencing the moon and not the finger.   

When we re-focus on the moon in this way, surprising things happen. Outwardly our postures and movement become light, flowing, effortless, we move in ways that strength and effort alone cannot achieve. Inwardly, the colour and brightness that came from disappointment or excitement with the sense of failing or achieving makes way for a sense of transparency, a playful, open-hearted simplicity, that is peaceful and patient with each unfolding moment, however it is. It’s a process that feels far more enriching and wholesome and expansive than the passing attraction/aversion of colour and brightness and one our practice slowly teaches us to take into daily life.  
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It's from this place we observe the wholesome patterns and habits that support an emerging transparency, the unwholesome ones that take it away and, importantly, the choices that make the difference.  As the practice becomes one of unveiling these more subtle inner exchanges, we begin to understand what the moon has to teach us and feel a deepening gratitude to the finger for pointing the way.   

Not long ago I was in the mountains alone, travelling light with just a bivouac for shelter. The weather was poor and then got worse. Deep in cloud, my senses tuned into every shape and form in the landscape to find the best way through. I was in a deep state of listening, listening to myself and the wider environment, the landscape, the strength of the wind, judging the steepness of the ground, assessing risk, appreciating the security of a handhold or the presence of an animal track when there was one, taking care when there wasn’t. Safely navigating meant accepting my vulnerability and through it dealing more honestly with each situation, not battling with, but blending with the natural world, remaining humble, open to the possibility I might be wrong, willing to retrace my steps and set a new direction. It was a process of constantly checking my assumptions, expectations and hopes with the reality around me right now.  

My plans to sleep out under the stars had been transformed over the previous hour into a search for shelter, somewhere out of the prevailing wind and horizontal rain. I began to examine more closely the inclination of exposed rocks as potential protection from the wind and rain, the slope of the ground and how the water drained as a suitable resting place. Now, everything about the landscape took on a particular importance and I smiled at how my intention had changed my relationship to my surroundings - now I was no longer passing through,  and a deeper integration was dawning. 

I found a small sheltered spot, just big enough to lie down where sheep had levelled the ground and grazed the vegetation creating a more comfortable base for sleeping.  With the promise of rest and a place to cook, I felt lifted with a sense of gratitude.  The rapidly fading light added a simplicity to the priorities at hand, to eat, create shelter, get warm and then sleep. Everything I did was in tune with the immediate surroundings, none of it perfect but together it was enough and that was good.  

Wilder places always present an environment that is both teacher and therapist. A rapid change in weather, unexpected barriers to progress, the need to reassess and change direction, to swallow our pride and accept we’re not where we thought we were and how good it feels when we find our path again. Wilder places make our connection and interdependency with the natural world more obvious and immediate.

It’s not only in the wilder places that we can develop this sensitivity that sees our place as fitting into the natural world rather than dominating it. We can take time to listen to what nature has to teach us closer to home, whether it’s our local park, the dappled light through a tree lined street, looking up and gazing at the clouds and seeing the flight of birds, hearing the dawn chorus or exploring the local countryside. However we do it, one thing is in common - whether we enter a woodland or stroll across a park, we enter an ecosystem that is an interdependent and complex web of relationships and energetic transfer, an ecosystem that we are not just observing but we are part of. Our presence matters, what we do matters, how we do it matters. We do not pass unseen, without impact, without communicating.  
 
 Many indigenous peoples retain a deep reverence for the natural world, seeking to work with and not against it, seeing the health and wellbeing of the natural world as inextricably tied into their own. They recognise that any ecosystem is always in the process of recovering from a state of past disturbance towards a state of equilibrium whether caused naturally or by human intervention and part of their role is to assist this process not frustrate it.   The same process of recovery towards equilibrium is also acknowledged as an intrinsic part of the human condition as it is in the whole of the natural world. This humility sees no one part as more important than another - the web of interdependency is felt as inclusive and not seen as a hierarchy. This wisdom is naturally protective to sustain balance and life.

What does it take to change our perspective? 

New perspectives come from experiencing the familiar in new ways. We’re used to thinking of our walks and hikes in nature in terms of our own health and wellbeing and the evidence shows that being immersed in nature brings many benefits – it supports our immunity, improves mood, enhances attention and cardiovascular health amongst others. In some sense we consume what nature has to offer for our own well-being. 

Is it just about consumption? What about the exchange between us and the environment, what are the energetic transfers and connections and why do they matter?

We each have a unique response to these questions conditioned by our current state of mind, our experiential and emotional history and our capacity to listen. Being in nature, alone and in silence leads us to relate to our environment in a different way. We tune more deeply into our outer and inner senses and gradually become more sensitive to this energetic exchange.  We discover the natural environment presents as a mirror for us to see more clearly  - we can witness how all of nature, including ourselves, is in the same process of recovery from past disturbance toward equilibrium. In this way the natural world can act as both teacher and therapist to guide us, both individually and globally.
This guidance has all shades of subtlety.

On an individual level, when we immerse in a natural landscape that’s in balance and deeply listen, we will sense both our own imbalance and a direction of change. If we follow this, valuing the energetic exchange in both directions, greater alignment comes and we begin to see our place in the web and what’s possible. Increasingly we realise there’s no separation between us and nature, nature’s wellbeing is our wellbeing, there’s the felt experience of an energetic merging. It’s as if we are the trees, the birds, the flowing water, the wind. All is an expression of the four elements we share in common.

On a global level our impact on the natural world reflects the degree our own disturbances have pulled us out of balance. When nature is impoverished, far from balance and the web is under severe strain, it’s a reflection our societal attitudes are out of alignment.  When nature thrives and the web is resilient and balanced then societies are as well.  Nature constantly tells us about the well-being of the web and as we are inextricably part of this, it also tells us about our own well-being as a human species.

So what does it mean to walk in nature? Where we find ourselves today, both individually and collectively, means the answer is never more important or urgent.
 
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And what of that night on the bare mountain? In the morning as I left, I turned back in thanks, only to find I was barely able to distinguish my benefactor, unremarkable as it was in its surroundings, special only in the relationship we’d had and the gratitude I’d felt: a landscape lesson in modesty, generosity and the transience of experience.  ​

From the ravages of war to damaged personal relationships and financial insecurity, each one of us will at some point face the challenge of change that inevitably comes  with human life. It is a fact, whatever our personal resources and situation, that all birth leads to aging and death, the ultimate cycle of change none of us will swerve. So a relevant question for all of us to reflect on is:
 
Do crises only bring difficulty or might they also bring us a clue to our wellbeing and happiness?
 
In times of crisis it’s natural to react with resistance, we don’t want it or like it. We often feel aggrieved at the way events have conspired against us. Circumstances change in a way we neither like nor anticipate and we feel out of control. Whatever the cause, it’s our reaction to whatever is happening that is both the source of the pain we feel and also the signpost to recovering our balance.
 
Our instinct rails against this idea, surely others are to blame for how we feel. Whilst behaviour and circumstances might be unfair, unjust or mistaken, the difficulty of our lived experience is personal to us and it is uniquely conditioned by the perspectives, beliefs and habitual thoughts we hold about ourselves and others. This personal lens through which we view events means we fail to have all the information we need to move towards something more wholesome.
 
How might we do this? Whatever has happened, however unfair, unjust or mistaken, our first step towards recovering balance is recognising:
 
“What we think and ponder upon becomes the inclination of our mind.” MN19  v11
 
If we repeatedly inhabit our stories of blame and criticism, we create defences in our mind that fuel our speech and action.
 
 “He abused me, he beat me, he defeated me, he robbed me”, in those who harbour such thoughts, hatred is not appeased.
 
“He abused me, he beat me, he defeated me, he robbed me”, in those who do not harbour such thoughts, hatred is appeased.
 
Hatred is never overcome by hatred in this world. Hatred is only overcome by love. This is an eternal law. Dhp v3-5
 
Learning how to take control of these tempting impulses is one of our greatest acts of kindness to ourselves and others in our life. It is how we reverse the flow and expansion of discontent and unwholesome experience.
Changing direction internally needs us to step out of the familiar stories we repeat, and learn how to redirect the energy that fuels them, but how to do this?
 
This radical proposition, seductive in its simplicity requires us to investigate beyond the familiarity of reaction that we have invested in so heavily. The difficulty we all face here is how to re-focus our attention and begin to reconcile within ourselves the resistance that’s fuelling our reaction and has such an adverse impact on our happiness and wellbeing.
 
Investigating what we do not yet understand within ourselves, at a deeper level than our surface thoughts and habitual dialogue can start with a simple exploration of:
 
“I forgive myself for not understanding.” From the teaching of Bhante Vimaralamsi
 
The approach we need is to let ourselves rest with the simplicity of these words repeating them and staying open to the experience that unfolds. It can take time and patience to learn to listen in this way, to move beyond verbal analysis and internal dialogue and directly meet the defended wounds inside with kindness and compassion.
 
When we find the courage to look within in this way, we move from being hostage to an outer resolution that might never be forthcoming, to a freedom from our inner resistance and defensive tension. This gives us the opportunity to discover how crises can reveal the path to lasting happiness.
 

Many of us initially approached yoga asana practice attracted by what it can do for us physically and mentally. I can certainly remember being surprised how inflexible and unsupple I was in my 20’s even though I considered myself to have a high level of fitness. Yoga offered a different way of inhabiting my body and it wasn’t long before I was hooked on the benefits.

As we practice, we develop new movement patterns, range of motion, flexibility and muscular strength and if we are fortunate we are guided how best to think of our body in terms of bones, joints, muscles, orientation, shape, weight, muscular contraction and release. In turn we’re guided to push down, draw up, engage, tighten, to stack our bones, balance effort and ease, look for physical alignment and to feel and work with the force of gravity. These cues encourage the presence of tension, often to support release elsewhere or to help stabilize joints, and this tension in turn helps us sense our body’s position (proprioception) and to directly experience the biomechanical forces within our body.

Awareness of this sensing and our breath brings focus and concentration to the practice which then can calm our mind.
Developing and training our physical body in this way brings significant benefits, it allows the release of some gross and superficial tension, opens up our joints and helps rebalance the muscular skeletal system. It develops a somatic awareness that is often absent and gives us a language and lexicon of the physical body. For many of us the increase in wellbeing, vitality and mental clarity is more than enough justification to practice.

In this respect, a physical approach to yoga delivers tangible benefits, but what I hope to show is that this is not the full the potential of a physical yoga practice and in fact may make it more difficult to access that potential.

Yoga is not primarily a physical practice

The primary purpose of yoga is not to develop the physicality of the body. This is a wonderful by-product and there are texts describing the health benefits of individual postures. Its primary role is a different process of development bringing together varying levels of body, energy and mind into a comprehensive, integrated system for affecting real inner change.  Yoga is certainly a practice expressed through the physical body but the path of development described in various traditions invites us to transcend not augment physicality. Without that, development can stall.

How do we move beyond the physical body by using the physical body?

In many Eastern traditions progress on the path of transformation towards a wholesome body and a wholesome mind moves from the physical, to the energetic then to the mental and finally to an understanding of the nature of consciousness. The transition from a physical to an energetic practice is an important step in this progression.

How we perceive our body changes our experience of our body

The challenge here is that thinking of and using our body from a physical / mechanical perspective  cultivates a particular ‘bodyset and mindset’, a way of perceiving our body and using our mind. There’s nothing new about this. We know this just from daily life. Our mind is very powerful. If we believe a task is going to be difficult or unpleasant it invariably is. If we’re invited to think of ourselves as heavy and tired the experience often follows. This also applies to the way we invite our mind to think about our body in Yoga asana practice.

As a result we are continually inviting ourselves to relate to our body in these physical terms. It keeps us referencing the body and invites a holding onto the physical sensation and experience as the primary awareness of importance. If we are to move towards an energetic practice this will need to change.

Cultivating our energetic system

Within the teaching of yoga, working with the energetic system can start with the cultivation of the physical Bandhas and the Ujjayi breath. Both Moola Bandha and Ujjayi stimulate the PSNS and a relaxation response whilst also providing structural integrity and postural stability. The combination is effective at stimulating our energetic system and provide the gateway towards an energetic based practice.

As we tune into this different source of structural integrity and postural stability that’s not based on tension, our mind recognises that we can begin to release the muscular tension we previously used for support. With this release the energetic system becomes more effective and efficient encouraging further release.
 
Rather than think of our body from a mechanical perspective we start to think of it from an energetic perspective. Support comes from an energetic connection with the earth, movement with water, the breath with air, energy with fire and the release of tension with space. The classical elements are helpful here because they help us reconnect energetically.

As this process continues we begin to re-frame the way we view ourselves from a purely physical to a mixture of physical and energetic.  We become aware that deliberate contraction of our muscles reduces the effectiveness of our energetic system and so we begin to move away from bio-mechanical inspired actions and cueing, and with this our language, lexicon and direct experience of the practice begins to change. Increasingly our practice feels lighter, more flowing and effortless.

As we release more tension in this way our body becomes more sensitive to what our mind is doing and the importance of where we place our minds attention in order to keep our joints, muscles and mind more fluid and mobile.

Gradually the balance between the physical and energetic changes, and the source of movement comes more from an energetic intention rather than a deliberate physical force. The practice becomes softer and more deeply relaxed supported by an inner energetic toning. Movement becomes the natural consequence of transitioning from a state of greater to lesser tension. Balance is the expression of minimal tension. 

Integration of body, energy system and mind

For our energetic body to express itself fully we must integrate the mind and the body, bringing together our intention, attention and awareness of tension. When we do this it supports the deeper expression of our energetic system that comes when we fully relax to a degree that not available from a physical / mechanical  perspective in many postures.  This integration of body, energy system and mind signal the transition from a physical and mechanical to an energetic “mindset and bodyset”. It takes time and patience not only to find this energetic system but also building the confidence that it can provide the structure, support, stability and integrity we need to take the first step in the transformation from a practice focused on the physical, to the energetic, then mental. When we finally allow this to happen it feels like we have stepped out of the way,  we no longer do the yoga and the yoga starts to do us.  The integration of body, energy system and the mind now become a gateway for a deepening exploration of the subtle nature of consciousness.
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We’re all familiar with situations where we’ve been on the receiving end of someone else imposing their will, and how that closes us down rather than opens us up.  The challenge for us all is to recognize that whilst our will is the route to productivity and achieving results, it’s a blunt tool on its own.

When we attempt to impose our will the wider impact gets missed along with the opportunity for connection with others. Words and behaviour can become ungenerous and cause harm in ways that slip under the radar whilst ‘getting the job done’ ‘meeting the goal’ or perhaps most aptly summed up with the phrase ‘getting our own way’. We’re often left with a feeling of ‘winning or losing’ rather than ‘finding a wholesome way forward’. 

It’s easy to notice this when it’s our perspective that’s not being taken into account, when we can find it difficult to express ourselves or act in a balanced way ….like when the energy of anger takes over or our energy drains away. Whilst times like these can be very challenging, these experiences are also the opportunity to see how our internal whirlwinds or the sensation of “pulling the plug” happen. If we can observe this we can begin to reshape our engagement in a way that’s balancing, helpful and wholesome. 

It’s less obvious for us to notice the way we too can have tunnel vision. It’s like our own will locks on to a ‘mental target’ and with it a satisfying certainty about the direction we are headed and our gathering momentum. If we don’t know how to pay attention and listen at this point, we risk missing out on any peripheral information that lies outside our focus, including how we and/or others are closing down in the face of this certainty. 

2500 years ago the Buddha’s extraordinary vision and wisdom enabled him to set out a framework of personal growth for us so that we can practice to see more clearly the power of our personal inner lens and intervene where it will make a difference to states of mind – such as when we face the internal whirlwinds, the sensation of “pulling the plug” or tunnel vision, that are out of balance. 

His pioneering investigation into the nature of mind revealed new insights about how it operates and a way to pay attention to retrain it towards wholesome states of mind, including the ease, contentment and happiness “Sukha” and the expanded deeper states leading towards liberation “Nibbana”. 

The process he taught for us to explore how the movements of our mind operate, is meditation. The way he taught this process to be effective is by developing the capacity to pay attention and listen – the practice of mindfulness “Sati”. He changed the traditional focus of meditation from the observation of something outside of ourselves to something within, the movements of our own mind and directed the skill of mindfulness towards seeing this.

As we practice and our capacity to pay attention and listen grows, we see our tendency to impose our will involves the somatic experience of tension and tightness around our brain as well as other parts of our body. It’s a reaction to incoming information, filtered through the senses and conditioned by our inner library of past experience – our habits, beliefs, stories and expectations. What’s also clear is it’s happening all of the time, from petty preferences to strongly held convictions, it’s how the mind shortcuts information to make speedier decisions and ward off threats. 

The difficulty is that our personal lens is, by its nature, not objective and so the shortcuts that are made are not always skillful or wholesome. Meditation is a subtle somatic practice and can help us find a different approach and restore balance in situations of familiar distress. In it, we keep practising releasing and relaxing the tension (and the drive to control what happens next), choosing instead to move into the next moment from a place of inner balance, smiling. 

The key here is repetition, the more we repeat this, the more quickly we embed a new habit of meeting tension generously, and this means we will feel our tension levels dropping, energy levels rising and more peace, calm and balance arising. We’ll get hijacked less and recover faster when we meet situations that triggered us in the past until there’s no longer any reverberation knocking us out of balance. 

It’s easy to recognise that the choices we make from this place of inner balance have the benefit of much wider vision and wisdom from which to proceed. We’ll also notice a difference in how interaction with others plays out: when we succeed in sidestepping the usual pitfalls within ourselves, others too find they are on new ground from which to respond. When this happens, a more dynamic playground opens up in our relationships as we step off the habitual merry go round of the past creating a more wholesome present experience. 

Like everyone reading this, we have our range of mind habits which can drag or slow us down, or speed us up with agitation and worry; it's all very ordinary and normal.  So, it's a relief that there's a way to find ease from all this and a sense of balance and space - not as an idea we tell ourselves but a real lived somatic experience that evolves from the way we learn to hold ourselves in the times we find most difficult.

The Sukhita approach has at its heart a profound simplicity that makes this somatic experience accessible. Our challenge, is not to strive to achieve some state of balance, but to learn to do less, to develop a simplicity of effort, contrary to our learnt reflex, that reveals how we get in the way of the balance we seek. Rather than fight and try to achieve what we long for we need to let go to find a new and more wholesome way for us to approach life. 

It's a lot like looking after plants. We cannot demand fruit ripen when we want. We all know harvest materialises when the conditions are right for growth and maturity. Nature takes the time it needs. In the same way our job is to give our attention in a skilful way to create the right conditions for our own fruit, and in this sense, we are all gardeners, simply needing the knowledge of what to sow and how to grow, how and when to prune, and what to let wither and remove. When we learn to do this well, nature will take care of the rest.