With a global pandemic, being played out on a planet experiencing climate catastrophes in a country based on systemic racism & social injustice what is a person to do?
There are so many options. One can choose any combination of fight, flight and freeze.
Civil rights can be demanded for actual real-life real and true reasons and/or for the right to sneeze directly into someone’s eyeballs. Safety and/or adventure can be sought by getting out of here and going to there, but it turns out, you will end up in the same place surrounded by your same skin. Hunkering down and hoarding with the idea that putting tons of energy into not making any moves what so ever will keep you safe works for a little while, but sooner or later you are going to have to try and do something besides not doing the wrong thing.
One can choose to ignore everything and pretend all is well. One can choose to pay attention to everything and insist all is lost and everything is fucked.
I am going to choose the rather complicated, multi-layered choice of addressing situations, making decisions, and taking action based on the reality that is currently being handed to me.
I am going with the YES, AND approach.
There is a thing in improvisational comedy called yes, and. “Yes, and…”, suggests that a participant should accept what another participant has stated (“yes”) and then expand on that line of thinking (“and”)
We are doing improv comedy and the scene is set that you are riding a walrus in an ice storm to escape an all out eskimo raw fish eating festival. You are terrified of walrus, hate the cold and are allergic to fish. So you say NO! We are riding a camel to escape attending a pop-up poetry reading. That is not how Improv rolls. In Improv you must roll with it. You must think, say, and do YES, AND!
YES, We ARE riding this walrus in an all out ice storm just barely escaping being participants in a three day fish eating festival AND we had better hurry because we were are late for our yoga class. Crazy improv situation.
Turns out life is a crazy improv situation.
YES, we ARE experiencing a global pandemic on a planet experiencing soon to be irreversible climate disaster in a country deeply rooted in systemic racism & social injustice, AND we are having trouble signing into our on-line yoga class.
Now that is some improvisational living. In this big crazy mess of a mess we bust out our yoga mats and roll with it.
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. Courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
On this wild ride of a 4th of July I hope you are Yes, Anding yourself into a state of being that enables you the ability to accept what is happening, the courage to make any changes in your situation that will encourage a better outcome for you and the entire world, and here is the hard part, the wisdom to know the difference between just rolling over and rolling with it.
Ashtanga Yoga Club Durham 