How do 'progress' and 'productivity' impact our practice?

I'm delighted to be teaching on a dear friend and colleague's 200 hour Yoga Teacher Training course (if you are seeking a teacher training I would highly recommend this one - do check out Imogen North - applications for next years intake are now open). 

The modules I offer explore how we can bring mindfulness and compassion to the foreground of our teaching and practice. 

In the last module we explored the Attitudes of Mindful Awareness. These are attitudes that we can bring to our awareness to help us to see our experience more clearly, meet it more calmly and hold it more kindly (e.g. a beginners' mind, acceptance, non-judgement, patience, trust, non-striving etc). 

Something that became apparent was how striving for a particular outcome can take many forms in our practice.

When we hear the word 'striving' we might leap to thinking of striving for our hands to touch our toes, or for our body to be able to do a complex pose. 

But striving can also take the form of demanding that our mind feel calm when it's distracted, or that our body feel at ease when there is tension.  

Sometimes we do feel calm and easeful, but sometimes we can create greater peace by accepting that actually in this moment, the mind is busy and there is tension in my body. 

As I mention in my book Weaving Mindfulness and Compassion into Yoga Teaching,

"When our intention is dominated by striving, by wanting things to be a certain way, we often increase rather than lessen tension. It creates a push / pull within our practice; a pushing up against how things are; a striving towards how they wish things could be, like swimming against the tide, expending vast effort while being drawn further from the peace that we seek."

Imogen wrote a beautiful article on this subject in which she writes: 
 

Non-striving asks us to accept our experience as it is, moment by moment.
That may mean being with tight hips, a racing mind, or a difficult emotion without needing to label it good or bad, or rush to change it. It means returning to the breath—not to control it, but to listen to it. It means noticing the ego’s desire to “achieve” calm, balance, or enlightenment—and gently choosing presence instead.

I would highly recommend reading the full article which can be found here.  

So this week you might explore how striving is playing out in your life and explore taking a moment to simply be with and hold your experience rather than immediately leaping to fix, change or 'improve' it.

As Imogen beautifully puts it. 
 

... when we stop striving, we find space.
And in that space, we may discover a deeper peace than any achievement can offer.