What is this practice anyway?

Practice? It sounds vague, doesn’t it… Let me take a moment to explain what ‘practice’ means to me.

A practice is like a mirror, in which we can see ourselves clearly and begin to understand who we really are. Anything can be a practice, provided it is done with the intention to experience and embody what is true. Truth is hard to define, but often arises as a feeling of clarity or perfection. Though our practices may appear to be different, we all hear the call to ‘be ourselves’; to express ourselves in a way that feels right; to live with resonance and meaning.

Naturally, we all express this ‘self’ differently - but self-expression is always happening. It’s inevitable. You’re always expressing something, even if you don’t know what it is. Your every action is telling a story about what matters to you. You might think of yourself as a yogi, mover, surfer, even dog trainer… but I say your fundamental practice is defined by the human qualities you express within your craft. For example, a surfer might be all about expressing fluidity in perfect harmony with the wave. A dog trainer might aim to express fluency in communication with her dog. A gymnast or weightlifter might aim to express power on the rings or through the barbell.

Life’s experience is felt through these qualities, and so in any given discipline or pastime, it’s the qualities we’re really looking for. To be able to live well is to feel these qualities deeply and freely within your being and then express them with equal sincerity. When I think of a master of a craft, for example, I think of someone who has mastered the expression of a multitude of qualities, through their craft. The maestro can express their inner experience to the rest of us as art, and the craft is just a vehicle.

There is something inherently beautiful and true about seeing such expression. It’s why it can be so tremendously satisfying to see a dancer move effortlessly from the embodiment of strength to the embodiment of softness, or listen to a piece of music which takes us on a ride through sensation and emotion. It’s the same reason we judge the quality of a story or film by its ability to take us on a seamless emotional journey - a journey through ourselves - through the characters. When we are really living, we are open to the qualities that life’s experience offers us - even if they’re challenging. The qualities move us as they move through us.

So, I think the key to the balanced practice is to welcome and understand opposites on the journey, rather than seek to overcome the fluctuations. Without the contrast, experience would be monochrome. It’s an unwritten rule of existence that the further we feel one way, the further we can feel the other… and so the relationship between opposites is truly a loving and integrated one. Relaxation comes with focus. Introspection comes with expansion. Fluidity comes with power. Stillness comes with strength. Calmness comes with chaos. Our experience of yin is completely dependent on our understanding of yang. Bringing awareness to the relationships between these qualities as we move, train, write and speak is what allows us to experience the flux more effortlessly.

We all need an open, fertile space to explore these things - a place where we can follow our intuition and live towards one quality or the other, without feeling we’re going ‘off track’. We all want to integrate our inner world with our outer world. We all want to live in a way which is reverent towards how we feel. We all want to speak from the inside out, rather than out of conditioning. We don’t just want to act still - we want to embody the feeling of stillness. We don’t just want to perform strong - we want to embody strength. If you’re a feeler like me, and this is something that interests you, please reach out. When things don’t feel quite right in life (at least for me) it’s because I’ve traded the real practice of feeling and seeing truth for what ‘appears’ to be the practice. What we do matters less than how we do it. In the end, the checkpoints in our life will matter less than how we got there.