So, random useless fact 101.
When you jump out of an aeroplane, it is harder to fall feet first than it is head first.
This means you naturally fall to the ground with your arse above your head. Making said arse the highpoint of your being. Your energetic being that is. Which for me as a yogi, seems a kooky kind of natural law inspired inversion. That of being upside down.
I know this from reading The Echo. Our local reported recently on an attempt at world record group sky-diving. This being, the most jumping punters – all falling feet first.
This, an apparently difficult thing to do.
Not the group jumping bit.
The feet first falling bit.
Human bodies attempting to defy the natural laws of physics.
This useless fact I found fascinating enough to store in my random-useless-information -storage system of my head. A place I occasionally (but very rarely) retrieve stuff from.
Most often at pub trivia nights.
But this week I realised that this is not only the year of the Green Sheep and a time to work collaboratively. This is also the year of shit news. A year of sad news. And a year of feeling like you’re a free-falling punter trying to get her head and her arse in the direction that natural law of physics intended.
Whatever way that may be…..
As I heard more shit news this week, about more beautiful souls in my world, murky thoughts started to surface.
The darkest and most selfish,
“I count my blessings. Thank God it’s not me.”
So shit news followed by shit selfish reactions make us feel, well, you know – shit.
Until I remembered the Echo and my random useless fact.
Which made sense of my current shitful feelings about the world and myself.
Think hip openers, yin forward folds and inversions.
When you’re knocked for six with stuff that rocks your world, it can be like you’ve been pushed out of an aeroplane. Where your arse is gonna lift and your head is gonna fall. But if we realise that all our basic brainstem survival mechanisms – or our deepest unconscious – are thought to reside in our pelvis, of course our arse is gonna hike up high. Meaning it can shoot our darker stuff up into our heads. The stuff of “me”rather than the stuff of “us”.
It’s our cemented ego-centred reflex to simply survive.
Judging ourselves by our thoughts and reactions can be a harsh slap of reality. The natural law of survival is a primal instinct. It betrays the laws of gravity. And seems to sometimes have the capacity to defy the even the laws of Yoga.
Meaning sometimes our thoughts are from from nice. They’re shit. And selfish. And ugly.
When I stepped back from these reactions and from these thoughts, I could see not only my unconscious stuff. I could see my body flipped upside down. I could see my Self trying to empathise and figure out head and tail of the situation. Of where I fit in. Of how I fit in.
Of how I could best connect out.
Putting ourselves in sad news shoes, as the natural law of physics dictates, will lift our feet up over our heads. And have potential to shake stuff into our brain.
Which we can think.
And we can own.
And we can say.
And in doing so disempower the ego-centred cement. Shifting us upwards to a softer space of being.To the softer space of heart.
Which according to this natural law, is always at the centre of our arse and our head.
Always holding us together.
Even when we fall apart.
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