Inside Yoga 44 (5/11/2011)

I recently sold my old house and bought a new house – and it’s true what they say about this process being so stressful! It didn’t look as if it would be before the whole moving games started, but once the dice was rolled the pressure mounted.

First, there is the stage of putting the house on the market and the wait for a potential buyer. Cleaning the house and making it presentable. Will they like it though?

Second, the offer is made, and besides wanting to pinch ourselves that someone has actually made an offer, what follows is a lot of activity. Getting a lawyer, getting the money and mortgage together, and importantly, looking for a new house – and putting in an offer for it.

Third, you then realise that there are so many people involved in the process; from your buyers, to the vendors of your house, to the chain in either direction. You are not in control the way you would like to be.

Fourth, you then discover that lawyers operate in their on mysterious way. Someone pointed out to me, lawyers take advantage of the fact that most of us don’t know or understand how they do their work. Lawyers rely on this mystique to pull the wool over your eyes and then they can take a long time to do your work – and charge lots.

Or as another businessman pointed out; lawyers are called legal advisors, but they are not, they are there to be told what needs to be done – or to use one of their favourite expressions – they need “instructing”.

And eventually the day comes when exchange and completion happens. You pack for days, boxes everywhere, and then unpack for even longer. Eventually, perhaps years later you have unpacked. And then you need move again!

And what has this got to do with yoga and the rest, you must be asking?

This whole buying/selling process is a teacher of many subjects in terms of yoga and Buddhism.

In daily terms, with so much going on, and stress levels reaching dizzying heights, a yoga practice is so important. It takes the pressure away, it returns us to balance and relative calmness, just when it feels as if our pressure cooker of a mind it going to explode!

During the last few weeks of the moving process, I found my work of teaching yoga a welcome antidote to my own stress, and importantly exhaustion – especially in the latter stages when I was not getting enough sleep and was physically tired.

And on a psychological and spiritual level, yoga and in particular Buddhism reminds us of impermanence. Moving home is a great reminder of how things change.

The home has changed and so has the environment (most of us do move house to another area and not just next door). So much has changed it is refreshing to turn a new leaf. It improves our awareness of our lives – not only does a new location help us open our eyes and other senses to take in the new place. We also look again at our possessions. It becomes a time for a clear out and also to ask that important question: “do we really need this?”

The move helps to reveal to us what is important in our lives; not just in material terms of our possessions, but also what we want emotional, spiritually and physically from our new home and location.

This process of packing for a move and unpacking once arrived brings us greater clarity of the present, as there is a period of time when there is so much to get done and this means that our attention can only focus on what is happening right now.

I am not advocating we all move home as a yoga practice but I do want to highlight that a yoga practice helps transform the negativity that arises from a stressful period, such as moving, into something more manageable and even rewarding.