Letting Go

Letting go

Release. Two small words with such a big meaning. For me the reason to start yoga. As a professional dancer and choreographer, I have always used my body in a compulsive way. Everything can be higher, further, faster, longer, more powerful and above all better. Better anyway. More. More intense. Beyond your limit. Get over it. Straight through it. Time and again go to the extreme.

Until I found myself in all my life at the age of 35. All perfectionism had blurred my limits and I had strayed endlessly from who I actually was. The urge for that perfect control that controlled my self-image.

In the midst of everything that I constantly imposed on myself, I was completely lost. Time for change.

After a life-changing coaching session with fellow dancer Myrna van Kemenade, I stepped on a mat with her for the first time. That yoga class brought me the most important lesson in my life. Learn to only be at 2 by 1 meter.

Let go. From the pictures that I wanted to be or had to be to myself. From wanting to perform the ideal pose to creating the pose my way. Nothing should. Everything is allowed. Be free to do less. Literally disappearing into the mat. Allow the surrender and rediscover the balance between mind and heart.

During that first lesson I fell in love with it. It became my safe place. Where I learned to really come home. Bit by bit, lesson for lesson, breathing for breathing, posture for posture and savasana after savasana go in search of and find who I am. And yes, I still find myself there, luckily I do. I learn to release every moment on the mat. I learn to dare to be myself as soon as I step off the mat. To be allowed to be. To be wanted.

To be. Is the hardest thing for me. Letting go. Trust. Embrace the resistance that is there and let it be. Move with the flow. Not against it. Go with the flow. It has been my life motto for 10 years now that I have been passing on with love and passion for 5 years. Nothing better than helping another person learn to let go. Continuing to apply my own lesson, teaches me every day again what I now use so often from the other side of the mat; Release.

My sweetest pose to let go is a mild backbend on a bolster or on another round pillow. You sit down with your legs in front of you and place the bolster vertically behind your buttocks. Then you lay yourself relaxed over it so that your back rests up to and including your head on the bolster. So butt on the ground off the bolster. You let your shoulders hang down and put your arms next to you as it feels right to you. From your lower back to your head, you are now lying on the bolster, lifting your chest slightly and opening it.

A soft conviction and heart opener where you feel "carried" by the pillow. Lower your weight towards the pillow as much as possible and use your breathing to open your chest more consciously. Let all feeling flow from your belly to your heart with your breath and on the exhalation Let go. As if you are overflowing from your heart. Stay in this pose for 3-5 minutes and then roll very slowly through your side of the bolster, push it away and roll back on your back to close with savasana. Feel what this attitude does to you. Unfolding the heart. Unfold your Self. Breath. Feel. Receive. Charge up. Release. From your heart.

Linda Veen
www.gowiththeflow-yoga.com
or follow me on Instagram @ linda.gowiththeflow or Facebook Go with the flow