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One of the many reasons I love yoga is that there is no ceiling.
There is always somewhere else you can go. Something you can work toward. A way to challenge yourself -- or, maybe more accurately, a way to allow yourself to be challenged.
And the challenge doesn't have to be something extreme.
You don't need to do a headstand. You don't need to twist yourself into one of those insane-looking poses you see on Instagram. I could start listing the actual Sanskrit names of some of them, otherwise known as asanas, but there is a very good chance you would have absolutely no clue what pose I was talking about.
Just trust me. There are some pretty insane ones.
And if you are looking for something that can challenge you mentally and physically while also helping you become healthier, stronger and more connected to your body, I highly recommend practicing yoga.
I have been practicing for more than a decade.
Yoga has been one of those things I hold near and dear to my own well-being. So when I found myself on a long journey where I was no longer allowed to physically practice, I had a choice.
I could completely disconnect from something I loved. Or I could find another way to stay connected to it.
So, naturally, I did what most people would do when they are told they can't actually do the thing they love.
I studied it.
Okay, maybe that isn't what most people would do.
But I started learning more about yoga philosophy. I studied anatomy. I learned more about why we do what we do instead of simply moving from pose to pose.
Eventually, I became certified.
If I couldn't practice yoga in the way I had known it for all those years, I was determined to find some way to remain part of something that had become so important to me.
And now, full circle, I have some amazing friends who have trusted me enough to let me lead them through their own practices.
Recently, we were working through Tree Pose.
Tree Pose looks pretty simple.
Stand on one leg. Place your other foot against your standing leg. Bring your hands together or reach them overhead.
Easy, right?
Not exactly.
Like so many things in yoga -- and life -- there are layers.
I started guiding my friends through different ways they could challenge themselves in the pose. You might assume the next challenge would be moving the lifted foot higher on the standing leg. Or raising your arms overhead. Maybe stretching a little taller.
Nope.
I told them to close their eyes.
Suddenly, everything changed.
When our eyes are open, our brains are constantly receiving visual information about where our bodies are in space. In a balancing pose, we often focus our gaze on one steady point. That focal point helps anchor both our body and our mind.
Close your eyes and that visual information disappears.
Your body has to start relying more heavily on other systems -- your inner ear, your awareness of where your body is positioned and all those tiny muscles working in your feet and ankles to keep you upright.
A pose you felt completely confident in seconds earlier can suddenly feel very different.
And that got me thinking.
How often do we do the exact same thing in life?
We become incredibly dependent on the things we can see: the plan, the schedule, the paycheck, the title or even the person standing beside us.
Those things give us something steady to focus on and reassure us that we know exactly where we are.
Until something changes. Suddenly, we can't see what comes next. And we wobble.
Our instinct is often to panic and immediately grab for something familiar. We want our visual point back. We want certainty. We want proof that we're still standing in the right place.
But maybe there are moments when the challenge isn't finding another focal point. Maybe the challenge is closing our eyes.
To start learning to rely on some of the other things we've spent years building without realizing it -- like our intuition, experience, resilience, relationships or values. To trust in our ability to adjust when something doesn't go according to plan.
Closing your eyes in Tree Pose doesn't magically make you better at balancing. Quite the opposite. At first, you will probably be worse.
But that's the point. You begin noticing what else is holding you up.
Life, to me, works the same way.
Sometimes growth isn't about doing the bigger, crazier, more impressive thing. Sometimes the challenge isn't the headstand.
Sometimes the challenge is standing exactly where you already are, closing your eyes and discovering that you have more inside you keeping you upright than you ever realized.
Maybe every once in a while we need to stop looking for the next thing to hold onto.
Close your eyes. Feel your feet underneath you.
Trust everything you've already built.
And when you wobble -- and you will -- open your eyes, reset and try again.
Because falling out of the pose was never the failure.
The practice is learning how to come back.
Mother, author, entrepreneur and founder of Dandelion-Inc, Lisa Resnick wants to hear your story. Share memories with her by emailing lisa@dandelion-inc.com.