Detachment

Yoga Sutra 1.15 "Detachment is mastery in not desiring objects seen or heard of."
-translation by Maehle

Thoughts:
Ahead of me in the next few months, I'm going to have to make some choices as far as employment goes. My current contract lasts just to the end of the year. I've got multiple options which is both exciting and daunting. As a chronic over-scheduler, my usual method of managing choices is to get attached to all possible outcomes and then try to do it all.

I'm finding in asana practice that I go through phases of attachment and detachment. It's interesting for me to watch the phases come and go. When I am first given something new to work on (a pose or transition), I'm initially fairly detached from it...usually because I don't actually believe the new pose is something I'll ever do! I notice my attachment to specific poses most when, for whatever reason, I "lose" a pose that I have been doing steadily. It serves to remind me that the practice is not the pose. It is the whole package: breath, bandha, driste, asana. When a "lost" pose does eventually return, it is always, of course, different. The longer I practice, the more I notice that grasping at poses is like trying to hold onto air. It's just not very substantial. I still get attached...still "desire objects seen or heard"...I still want handstand!

I'm grateful though, that this practice gives me a chance to do just that, practice. I can be attached to a pose and watch it happen...and then watch what happens when the pose changes, as it inevitably will. With a lifetime of practice, who knows what's possible? I hope to carry the experience of attachment and detachment in asana practice with me into the next few months as I approach this next round of employment decision-making.