Sometimes the best way to do something hard isn’t to attack it head on.
There’s another way. Think of it as “surrounding the dragon.†Dragons are big! They have sharp teeth, and breathe fire! A dragon is not the best thing to attack. So instead, try walking carefully around your dragon. Get to know it. Bring it food and water and whatever else dragons like. Soon enough, maybe you won’t even need to attack this dragon. Maybe you’ll just be friends.
Same principle works for your body — for your athletic endeavors, healing injuries —and in the rest of your life, too.
Hard things get easy when you stop gunning for hard things and start working peacefully with you, right where you are. If we’re always struggling with hard things, then hard things will always be hard. Practicing struggle, we get awfully good at struggling. So here’s another tip for making hard work easy:
Work less, play more. Especially while you’re working. (Hint: you can practice this in your yoga!)
When something is hard — like an arm balance in yoga, for example — rather than pushing and jumping and struggling against it, stay where you’re relaxed, easygoing, and playful! Gently explore this hard thing. Get to know yourself.
Soon enough, you’ll have made friends with your body. You won’t need to go to war with you (or with anything) to accomplish hard things. Hard things just won’t be hard any more.
Ready to play? Jump in and have fun.
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