A Hugeness of Living

Let’s imagine.

Everything we want. 

Let’s consider the ways we’ve been told we can’t have it. 

The world is just violent. Men are disappointing. Women are competition. You have to work harder for your body to be a good body. Aging is inevitable and a nightmare of diminishing returns. 

No wonder we freak out and binge watch and doom scroll and walk around a little bit terrified.

A key investigative tool would have us ask, who benefits from us believing such drivel?

In corresponding order: The military industrial complex, patriarchy, capitalism and its psychopathic soldiers: corporations. 

Do you consent to supporting these dysfunctional systems with your beliefs?

Try on this women’s commitment, from the counseling system I practice-

“I solemnly (fiercely, cheerfully) promise that, from this moment on, I will never again settle for anything less than absolutely everything.”

What does it feel like? Preposterous, naive, eyebrow raising, yummy?

And what would it mean? What would it mean to carry this commitment with you into partnership, community and family? Into our achingly beautiful world?

You would risk devastation. Deep disappointment, absolute heartbreak. And those are the perfect things to risk in the grand adventure of your lifetime. You would risk the deepest human connection, huge love, the crumbling of order as we know it, a reinvention of human relationships, stunning pleasure, a radical restoration of reciprocity (and alliteration apparently ;). 

What’s yoga got to do with it? 

This commitment not to settle, lives in conversation with the dynamism of your life. What if your desires compete with your values? You could become flummoxed, disillusioned, paralyzed.

Or, you could keep looking. Stay engaged. What is the deepest longing behind any particular want? What genius creative ways can they be satisfied while holding steadily to your values? You can live amidst paradox and thrive with your most creative thinking on hand. 

And this is the sly elbow nudge of Tantra, to seek what you most deeply desire and let it drive you through your whole life. To move beyond the conflation of circumstances with limitation and towards a holistic imbibing of life’s infinity nectars. 

Asana, meditation, pranayama, scriptural study, can all be felt in the name of your liberation. Each movement strengthens the circuitry that reminds you not to settle. Each breath fills you with the strength to resist maladaptive norms. Each minute of sitting collects your deepest self, a nourishing of your revolutionary spirit. 

I want nothing less for you than to be world builders. And you are indeed, innately, so be so consciously and with intention. I want nothing less for you than love, that delivers you to your deepest homecoming. Let us not be helpless in the face of extreme conditions. But instead put on our hardhats and grab our nearest accomplices by the hand. 

I’ll meet you on the playing field, where you have committed cheerfully to a hugeness of living. 

Stay Encouraged,
Hilary Elizabeth