The Edge of Grace

This next week, I will be subbing the level 2 yoga class that I usually take. In truth, I am nervous. But I am also excited. Stepping into the seat that my teacher Amy (a teacher that I greatly respect and admire) usually holds will ask me to expand in new, and potentially radical, ways. As a student in this class, I know that I come to it for a challenging posture sequence and for refined instruction. I want to step up and offer this level of teaching. I want to trust myself and the greater consciousness, to surrender to grace, and to act from all of the experience I have had before this moment — and expand into the energy of the space.

Experiences that challenge us make us a nervous because they are outside the boundaries of our comfort zone — they are edges. The term “edge” is a concept I work with in Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy sessions. In a physical stretch, it is that point where there is a strong sensation, where something interesting is happening. If you go beyond this point, it becomes too much and perhaps changes from interesting into pain. If you back off too far from this point, it might start to seem like nothing is happening and lose your attention. In a Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy session, I guide my clients to look for that place that gets their attention, and we stay there and explore. There are all kinds of edges — physical, emotional, mental, spiritual, and life experiences. And the thing with edges is that they change when we stay with them. Over time, we expand so the edges transform and become part of our comfort zone.

It is also true that with practice, we become more refined in choosing our edges. We learn to discern when an edge is too far outside of our comfort zone, and therefore it may not be the optimal learning experience at that point in time. For me, I know if I am ready to step up to an edge if I can sense grace just beyond it. I feel nervousness in my body, but I can also feel the currents of grace flowing through me. In the instance of teaching the level 2 class this week, I will draw on my five years of study of Anusara in classes, workshops, and teacher trainings and my nine months of teaching classes in the Anusara style. I will breathe deeply and trust my experience and my body. I know it’s possible that my voice will shake at the beginning of class, as it tends to do when I step up to a big edge — and that will just tell me that I am putting my authentic self out there in a very visible and vulnerable way — and then I will trust myself and the universe and surrender to the currents of grace.

The past couple of weeks, I have been watching the Olympics and have been especially enamored with figure skating, partly because the athletes are doing very difficult yoga poses (natarajasana, ardha chundra chipasana, etc.) — while balancing on ice skates! But also, because the athletes use the experience of the Olympics to help themselves expand. The other night, in the women’s long program, the top seven skaters — the medal contenders — all had fantastic skates, many of them receiving personal best scores. They each took to the ice, stepping up to their own edges — the expectations of others, their expectations of themselves, the reality of skating on Olympic ice, etc. — and they trusted all of the training they had done before that moment. They stayed present and offered a combination of strength, athleticism, and artistic grace. And though there is competition in Olympic ice skating that is not a part of the teachings of yoga, they used that moment to make more of themselves — to expand into greater freedom and beauty.

Ultimately, I believe that it is a combination of fiery action and fluid surrender that helps us to make more of ourselves. Stepping up to an edge involves choice and action. It requires iccha (“will” or “desire”). Why would we step up to edges that gives us butterflies in our stomachs and make our voices shake? My answer is because I want the freedom, the expansion, the grace that is just beyond the edge. And I believe that we all know, deep inside in our place of deepest knowing, that the only way to get there is by going through our edges. We call on tapas (“heat” or “fire”) to help us move through the nerves, the discomfort, the strong sensations. And then, we soften, we lay back on the larger consciousness, we surrender to grace, and let ourselves expand into the energy of the space just beyond our edge.