Many of us accommodate stress and anxiety - its daily tiptoeing into our bodies has become so normal that soon enough, go-go-go is the inner set-point for living our lives. The only rest the body can find then, is in the form of sleep, simply due to exhaustion. We hear it frequently during Savasana don't we, the one snoring somewhere in the corner of the room, or the rhythmic whistling exhale of another. Sleep overcoming the body is not the same as the body knowing how to be at rest. Somewhere down the line, the body has forgotten its own natural state of rest, only finding it when taken over by sleep.

That being at the physical level, there are many experiences on the mental level where we find similar blind spots, where we skip from one state to the other without an in-between. Like a body that only knows rest as sleep, a mind that doesn't know how to let go of things, will experience "letting go" as "giving up" - they're perceived as one and the same. Giving up sees no way forward - when that thing we're pushing still won't be pushed, we give up: "well, I've tried everything". Being overcome by futility makes us stop. Letting go on the other hand, seems to carry its own consciousness, and it arrives well in advance of giving up, but our blind spot prevents us from seeing it. It knows when it's wise to ease up; and because of that very courage that letting go enacts, it already knows that a channel forward will be made. To let go gives space for what will come next, to give up results from unmet demand. Letting go allows the breeze of life to move in and move through, it freshens and ultimately it inspires. It allows life to move as it knows how to, as well as to heal and to recover in the way that only life can. If we can learn to let go before we need to give up...

Vanessa

*image credit: Antoinette Biehlmeier on Unsplash