Because I was a child who grew up in the 80’s, I’m a fan of the music and movies from that generation. One of my favorites is and will always be, The Karate Kid.  Not only was a it a feelgood type of movie, but there were also some important lessons taught. I remember walking out of the theater feeling empowered and also enlightened.

Remember this scene?

I remember watching Mr. Miyagi’s zen-like focus as he concentrated on catching those flies with his chopsticks. Even as Daniel walked in and was pestering him about what he was doing, Mr. Miyagi kept his eyes and mind on the task at hand.  Albeit Daniel caught the fly within the first few tries while Mr. Miyagi relentlessly tried over and over, it amazed me that a person could have so much dedication and concentration to attempt to catch something as small as a fly mid-air, with something as delicate as a pair of chopsticks.  I still actually wish I had that focus.

When I’m practicing yoga, there are constantly a million distractions taking place.  Whether it be distractions in my head or distractions in the studio, they are always hard for me to ignore.  I wish I was able to simply block out the internal and external ‘noise’, but for me, it’s just never that easy.  For example, there is this lovely woman who I see in class pretty regularly.  We’ve chatted with one another on more than one occasion and are even on a first name basis.  However, when she’s practicing next to me, I can’t help but be distracted by her.  To say the least, she’s quite fidgety.  She’s constantly fixing her hair, wiping the sweat from her face, getting in and out of poses, sighing from frustration and has even tapped her fingers against the bamboo floor during savasana.  And when she’s fidgeting, the only thing that I can think about is why she’s acting this way.  I try not to watch her; I try to only focus on myself and my breathing.  However, she then starts moving around restlessly again.  My thoughts then come racing back as to why she can’t just stop moving, why she just doesn’t seem to understand that what she’s doing isn’t helping her practice and how if she just relaxed, things would fall into place.  I kept analyzing her in my head and wondering why she was so unfocused.  But as I’m asking myself all these questions about this woman, my practice begins changing and all of the sudden, I’m the one fidgeting.  I’m now doing the exact same thing that this woman is doing.  The only difference is her anxiousness is manifesting itself on a physical level versus mine is happening mentally.  Either way, we both weren’t focusing on the one thing we needed – our breath.

Image Credit – Oprah.com

Why was I so consumed by these thoughts? Why was I so concerned about what this woman was doing? Why did I care that she had all this nervous energy?  How was this something that I needed to be worried about?  Sometimes I think we take on the stress of others when we don’t necessarily have to.  We force ourselves to be weighed down by thinking about what others are doing in their lives versus concentrating on what is going on in our own.  My teacher told us in class one day that we need to stop carrying around other people’s baggage.  Our own baggage is heavy enough; we don’t need the burden of someone else’s.  These words of wisdom rang so true for me.  I have the tendency to worry about other people and to be consumed by what is occurring in their lives to the point where it starts affecting my own.  It’s not healthy and it’s definitely not necessary.  If we can only use the energy we burn on others and the insignificant distractions that happen in our lives and turn that energy onto ourselves and the things that mean the most to us, I think we would be much happier and not feel as ‘heavy’.

Image Credit – scrapetv.com

During today’s practice, I remembered what my teacher had told us in class that day and tried not to listen to my distractions.  Obviously, the distractions were there and I was aware of them.  But this time, I made a choice.  Did I want to let my thoughts get the best of me or did I want to have the best practice that I could have?  Did I want to carry around all this unnecessary weight or did I want to be set free? As soon as I made the choice to focus on me and to put emphasis on what was going on in my practice, the distractions seemed to stop.  All of the sudden the noise had been silenced and there was no more fidgeting.  By letting go of my own baggage, I had the capacity to go deeper in my mind and thus, I had the ability to shut off the clatter.  It wasn’t a difficult thing to do, I just had to try and allow myself to do it.  And it’s probably much easier than using chopsticks to catch flies.

What’s your biggest pet peeve?  How do you deal with distractions, mental or physical?

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Namasté,
Nicole