Attunement

Not long ago, I was immersed in my Gestalt community on a weekend residential retreat and I’m inspired. (For context, alongside my work with Mysore Melbourne and family life, I am in the midst of four years in training as a Gestalt therapist). In me, Gestalt and Ashtanga yoga have been together as friends for a very long time (I was introduced to Gestalt by other Ashtanga practitioners in 2001).

During the recent retreat, one of our faculty said, “Life isn’t all about ascendency,” and the phrase stayed with me. I’ve been thinking about how tough it can be for us yoga practitioners when we feel ourselves in decline. I’m moved by my regular students, in their constancy, despite the many challenges that arise in life, and despite the reality of our ultimate physical demise. I think I may have said here before…I’m pretty sure that I myself keep practicing yoga to both defy and embrace this fact of life.

What comes to mind is attunement, one of the most beautiful teachings of Ashtanga yoga. Lessons about attunement are available to us through practicing vinyasa, and by calibration to the cycles of nature within us and around us all the time. Attunement isn’t ascendency and self-improvement, it is aligning with what is present. It’s getting in touch. What do we get in touch with? Well, simply put, life. And maybe, in doing so, we find something out about what is important to us. And maybe we find something out about what we are turning away from. And just maybe, we can learn something about how we can support ourselves to come back, and be with this life and the beautiful truth of it.