there is beauty in acceptance

Sharing a reading from one of my favorite yoga

mentors and teachers, Vanda Scaravelli.

What do we mean by Relaxation?

To relax is not to collapse, but simply to undo tension. This tension has been accumulated in the body and in the mind by years of forceful education. Tension is the result of will, effort and prejudice.

We have been trained, during the first part of our lives, to struggle to achieve. Now we have to work in the opposite direction, by letting go, giving place to a different action (if we can call it action), an "un-doing action." This will stop the habitual process of doing which has become mechanical.

The body in itself is healthy, but it has been ruined by all sorts of negative, destructive, guilt feelings. If one can avoid going in this negative direction, a positive attitude will take over and the body will then be able to start its recuperative function, its natural way of existing. There is nothing to be done. It is not a state of passivity but, on the contrary, of alert watchfulness. It is perhaps the most "active" of our attitudes, going "with" and not "against" our body and feelings.

There is beauty of acceptance of what is.

Excerpt from "Awakening the Spine," by Vanda Scaravelli