Less is More

I find it funny how I have moved from a small quiet Mediterranean Island to a big buzzing urban city and yet I have slowed down. I've have grown stiller and quieter. I am allowing myself here the freedom to do very little and to fully enjoy the abundance of 'doing little'. Feeling content and at home, feeling secure in this new softness and slowness, I am relearning or deepening my understanding of a principle I constantly teach:

Less is more

I often find that life lessons are like onions. Layer by layer the fog is peeled away and the truth of the lesson becomes clearer and clearer. I am constantly relearning or rediscovering the same lessons over and over again.

Less is more, is an idea I first greatly resisted especially in my yoga practice. As part of my teacher training, we were taught somatics. For over three months, I was bored and annoyed by somatics. I felt like I wasn't moving, that I wasn't doing anything. But being the good student that I am, I kept with somatics. I practiced them (and hated them) daily. Eventually and thankfully in the end somatics won. I released and allowed the subtle movements of somatics to move me greatly. I began to finally let go of constantly tight muscles which I didn't even realize were tight. With time, opposed to constant resistance, my mind found comfort in the gentle movements and I grew more aware of the subtler layers within my physical body. I was amazed by how much more there is to explore. I continued on with my Somatic practice, with discovering how less is more in the body.

I also realized that of course doing less off my mat would bring me the same nourishing benefits that somatics were now giving me. Changing my mind from thinking that I should always be creating, learning, earning, producing, teaching, giving, doing, is difficult. Good lessons are a process and often a challenge. Even now as I delight in less, I also struggle with it. As I learn about the wonders of less, a nagging voice comes to me, pinches me, and suggests that I should feel guilty for not doing more. Funny how our minds work. How we are programmed to think and have grown comfortable in thinking.

I continue to learn and relearn and relearn and relearn...

And I try to do so patiently and persistently.

Less is more.

Peace and happiness,

erinbell

www.erinbellfanore.com