I have recently purchased a new house and left my job of eight years. These are not events that happen very often, and independently they are very exciting. The house was an upgrade to the one I was previously renting, it is the first time I've owned a house, and the house is located in a suburb that has always attracted me. My job was never my dream job, and I had always considered it something that simply caught me at a time that I had no direction. I was able to complete a doctorate at this job, and leaving it behind allows me to find myself a new profession. These events were years in the making, and expectations were high. In the few weeks that these events have occurred, I often found myself comparing my lived experience to how I thought things should be in my mind.
I should have felt liberated to be free of landlords and rent inspections but I had bitter feelings towards the housing market and I was sad to leave my neighbour's cat behind (we have grown very fond of each other in the past couple of years). I should have felt happy that I've been given the chance to pursue a profession that I've considered for a long while, but I am feeling overwhelmed by the prospect of changing careers in my mid thirties. With six months until I can go back to study for my next life's chapter, I have so much free time after years of hard work, but without the structure of a day job, I'm unsure how best to use my time.
What I have noticed in this experience of experiencing, is that when I compare things to how I think they should be, I diminish and alter the way in which I perceive and interact with life. We carry around a lens that distorts life into couplets of opposites: what 'is' is reduced to whether or not it matches what should be; things become 'good' or 'bad,' 'pleasing' or 'uncomfortable,' 'this' or 'that.' But reality is often more nuanced.
In the times when I have slowed down and allowed myself time to reflect and feel my experience, everything becomes true, and the labels that my mind fixes on any given situation become meaningless. When my breath becomes settled and I feel the tingling of my skin and pleasantness of my being, there is no need for commentary or judgement. Everything that enters my awareness, pleasant, or unpleasant, is perfectly fine. At the same time, I can be both happy and sad, both lost and sure of myself. I am grateful for the practice and teachings of yoga that allows us to rise above comparisons, and instead see and accept things for how they are.
When we are in a position that is new for us, it is natural for us to ask: "Is this okay? Am I doing the right thing?"
When I was teaching yoga asanas to one of my students, she saw me looking at her, and asked "What am I doing wrong?"
We shared a laugh and I answered "You are trying to judge yourself. That's what you are doing wrong. Just feel how it is for you now."
If we can learn in the practice of postures to step away from comparisons towards the total experience of the body... if we can learn to enjoy new experiences for simply how they are, rather than how they 'should' be... then we can be free to enjoy life, however it comes to us.
In the Upanishads, it is said: “tena tyaktena bhunjitha.” Renounce and enjoy.