“Build your mountain from the ground up, and remember to be strong, but soft. They’re not antonyms. You should always be strong and soft instead of weak and hard.”
This was said to me during a particularly difficult sequence in yesterday’s yoga class, and it hit me pretty hard. Being strong and soft is not a trivial thing to accomplish either in yoga or in life. Whenever I think about being strong I think about being intense, I feel like it means I should be a rock, unmovable unbreakable. When I’m in yoga and a pose requires a lot of strength I find myself consciously trying to soften any part of my body that is not required to keep me in the pose, but I haven’t yet found a great way to do this off the mat.
I’ve been so exhausted from my research lately because I’m so intensely trying to find a project to do my dissertation on, but everything keeps failing. To combat this I try to be strong, I try to intensely push on with a laser focus that’s physically exhausting. I need to learn to keep the strength that’s required to persevere and persist on, but I need to soften. I can’t kill myself over it. I’m still working on how to take this theory and put it into practice, though. It’s so easy to be weak and hard; I need to become strong and soft.
I hope everyone is having a great weekend; I know I’m trying to.
Namaste,
Tagged: dissertation, graduate school, science, soft, strong, yoga
This is wonderful and profound advise. <3