In a Rut?
I'm in one. How about you?
And what is a rut?
A rut is a groove in the earth, like an indent caused by wheels. If you see a groove in the ground, especially one caused by a bike or car, that's a rut.
It's also a repetitive routine that can be hard to break. If you're stuck in a rut, you've been doing the same old thing for too long.
According to yogic philosophy, these "ruts" indicate karmic inheritance of mental and emotional patterns—known as samskaras—through which we cycle over and over again during our lives.
These samskaras make up our conditioning. Repeating samskaras reinforces them, creating a groove that is difficult to resist. Sometimes Samskaras in daily life look like paralyzing inaction, or at the opposite extreme, mindless, aggressive and repeated pushing and doing.
How do we change samskaras? Yoga practice offers tools in the deconditioning of samskara that include intention (Sankalpa), comittment (Tapas), deliberate slowing (Shani), awareness (Vidya), fearlessness (Abhaya), vision or envisioning (Darshana) and practice (Abhyasa)
When we leave old patterns behind through this process of change, it can be unsettling, a kind of limbo, or "bardo". Yet improving our samskara brings us closer to our true nature, which is central to yoga's purpose.
Yoga tells us that the ability to shift these grooves in our own soil—once we’ve sown the seeds—is self-generating, self-sustaining, and self-renewing. If we can be patient enough to work with samskara’s process, change flows organically. And the reward is the sweetness that arises from seeing conscious preparation come to fruition.
My own rut is complicated by very real issues I am having with my shoulders. A shoulder socket deformity I was born with on both sides means they are particularly prone to injury and bony spurs that contribute to nagging, sometimes debilitating, pain... and mine have hit a place where I need to rest. And do something different. The practice of "Shani", of slowing, feels particularly apt. This is tricky in the world of teaching online where I feel the need to "do" everything I am explaining.
Practicing Shani for me means I have asked other instructors to step in for 2-4 weeks for some of my classes so that I can stabilize my shoulders. My son Liam will be my "body" for the Sunday morning and Monday evening classes, so that you all have someone inspiring to follow visually! This is new for me, and for Liam, who has been my student before, but not in this new way. And I find I am looking forward to teaching with someone else in the space with me who can act as a conduit between my words and your actions.
I hope this time off gives my shoulders the break I need to restore some of the stability, and that in trying something new, I can begin to feel myself climb up and out of my own midwinter rut. And maybe in shifting my own Samskaras I can help you to do the same.
February and March schedules have both filled out with softer, slower practice series. This synchronicity is fascinating to me and also not surprising. Perhaps this is the universe's suggestion that these slower, healing practices—yoga nidra, yin yoga, restorative yoga, SATYA and 'beginner's mind' are vital, powerful and complementary ways of enriching yoga practice. Are you in a conditioned rut? why not try something new these next few weeks? Go back to the beginning with the Intro class, or take a lovely yin or restorative class and notice if you feel a shift away from habit and toward a deeper connection to self.
And let me know how else we can help you move out of the groove of Samskara and back into the flow of your vibrant, authentic self.
