Rewilding stability

Stability and mobility has shown up over and over the past two weeks. It’s a huge theme of this trip, of yoga in general and also a theme of my life currently. I’ve been sitting in a place of curiosity and contemplation and it’s been a struggle at times to be okay with the unknown. But one small conversation helped me to gain a lot of clarity.

I believe as humans, we are always seeking stability. Inherent stability is required to allow mobility. I know this concept well through my work as a physical therapist.

The spine needs stability to allow our limbs to be mobile. The stability of our core is always a trending topic in the health world. We all know we physically need a strong core. But what about the other aspects of ourselves? Our mental, emotional and spiritual bodies need a stable “core” as well. I’m starting to see how all encompassing this idea can be in our lives.

One leg has to be stable to allow the other to lift off the ground to take a step forward. Every time we walk, we are playing with the dichotomy between stability and mobility. Thousands of times a day our bodies physically understand this concept. Perhaps the rest of us inherently knows and understands this dance between stability and mobility. It just requires us to deconstruct our current beliefs of how we achieve stability in this life.

There may be many ways to seek stability in life. In this short conversation with my teacher Prasad, he spoke of two ways to find stability: Purpose and place.

In that moment something clicked. I have sought after the later my entire life. I thought finding stability in place was what we were all meant to seek. I felt like it was the only way to feel safe and secure, to be rooted in one place.

I’ve moved a ridiculous amount of times over the past 11 years but it was all driven by this motivation to feel stable. What looked like great mobility was truly a lack of stability. I believe that unconsciously, my mind told me that if I created external mobility, it would force me to find internal stability. Clearly this never quite worked out for me.

In one conversation Prasad gave me permission to find stability how I’ve always felt drawn to; through my purpose. I had to hear from someone else that there were other options. It gave me a framework I was missing, a foundation to continue to build from.

It’s funny that I can deeply feel something but not have language to verbalize the experience. There must be a word to describe the moment when you find a word or concept to describe a previously indescribable feeling.

I know this is the direction my soul is meant to move. I know this is my purpose. But knowing that my stability will come with being in my purpose, revolutionary!

When everyone around you is finding stability in place, it takes courage to find it in purpose. There is nothing wrong with seeking stability in place, but for me, it never landed deeply or lasted. The closest I got was the past two years in Colorado. I truly felt incredibly stable and content. And even in that, I felt a calling to something different. That is how I know place is not where I will find stability currently in my life.

Uprooting my life, having no place to call my own has felt incredibly destabilizing and liberating at the same time. I’m learning that physical instability does not have to lead to a complete lack of stability as a whole. That mobility and stability are always dancing with each other. Remember, as my right leg is firmly planted on the ground, my left is free to lift and move forward freely.

I can always come back to my purpose and find stability within. What is within me will never leave me. My stability is inherent no matter how much mobility I feel in place. I literally had to fly half way across the world to learn this about myself which is a bit ridiculous. But life is always a bit ridiculous when we think about it.

In the bagavad Gita, a spiritual text of yoga, it speaks directly to this point. (loosely paraphrased)

“Whatever was lost was never yours.

What you are will never be lost.” BG 2.16