For the past two months, Frannie and I have been doing yoga.  It’s a totally new thing for me.  I was skeptical about it at first, but it’s been totally awesome and perspective changing.  Even though I am completely inflexible and unaccustomed to all of the poses (and perhaps because of this), doing the practice and cracking open my body in new ways has really had a noticeable effect.  I walk out of yoga feeling open, calm, confident, and clear.

There’s a lot I could talk about, but perhaps the idea that has stuck with me the most so far is the idea that we — generally speaking — walk around carrying an air of “subtle discontent”.  This is the nagging feeling that there’s something wrong, somethin missing,  something to get to (that’s not here), something more important to be focusing on, to be doing.  If you think about it and try to notice it, you might be surprised how ever-present it is.

This tends to manifest itself physically in tension between the eyebrows.  And a part of the yoga practice is noticing that feeling, releasing it, letting it melt away, and focusing on experiencing and enjoying the current moment.

For me at least — and I assume for lots of folks who are working hard and are generally under stress — this idea really hit home.  I think there is also something related to this in being hyper connected and constantly checking our phones.  Checking my phone, anxiously, habitually, for new emails, tweets, etc., is a certain form of this subtle discontent.  

And I love the idea of noticing it, being aware of it, melting it away, and refocusing on the present.