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The most direct thing I learnt from the yoga practice is to scan the body and see if there are any parts that could be further relaxed. I grew up in Mainland China and was always the top student, and all the teachers, parents, bosses, are always saying “cheer up”, “fighting”, “try your best to do it”. Therefore, this is actually the first time when I was taught to examine myself and “feel” the relaxation. I never knew that “feel I am relaxed” is totally different from “think I am relaxed”. My past practices of telling myself to relax is totally of no use, because I never truly faced my body and felt the tensity. After class, I mindfully applied this technique into my daily life, and asked myself “is there further space to relax my shoulder, my belly, or maybe, my mind? Can I make minimal adjustment to make myself feel better?”

I also like the concept of “minimal adjustment”, because during our yoga practice, I suddenly realized that during my past years of life, I am used to “over-adjust” a lot. And most of the times, the adjustments are faked to show to the people who are “watching me”. For example, when I was in the office at work, my feeling towards my work is a combination of both satisfaction and some tiredness. However, I always hide my happy feelings during work, and I even “exaggerate” my facial expressions, or intentionally knock my waist when my colleagues are around, to show them “Lumi is feeling painful, Lumi is working very hard, etc.” After learning “minimal adjustment” from our yoga practice, I then realized that I should knock my waist only when I feel I need this to make my body feel better, instead of faking this behavior to show some messages to my colleagues.

To dig deeper into this habit, I observed that throughout my whole life, I am caring too much about what others think of me. I don’t want to disappoint anyone, so I always show the worst situation to them before I accomplished the thing. I even feel ashamed of manifesting my happiness to others, because I am so afraid that others will jealous, etc. Now, after I learnt the minimal adjustment, I am starting to be true to myself, embrace my pleasant or unpleasant or neutral feelings, do what I need only for myself… In the past, I wasted so much energy on “cheating myself” to “please others”. As a result, I was already “blind” of my true feelings. Every word and behavior of mine are more or less “decorated” already. After I stopped doing this, I began to feel much less burden, and I am more honest towards my own feelings. I feel my life is becoming lighter.

During one Yin yoga practice, I remembered Janet asked me to bend down a bit lower, and I said “I can’t do more, because otherwise my shoulder will be tense. Janet laughed and said, “but remember we need to pay 60%-80% effort, not 0% effort. There is nothing in the world that causes 0 effort.” This was actually a great warning to me. During October, my mental status was very down and I was always complaining about many things, like “my job is boring”, “why am I still here in HK, the place is so small”, etc. But this practice reminded me that, there is nobody in the world that can harvest everything without paying any effort. For example, I want the benefit of HKPR identity, so I have to pay some effort, like working to obtain the visa, living here for 7 years even it’s small and expansive. If I want to change, I may find feasible choices, like changing to a better job, applying for student visa, or marrying a HKPR (kidding), etc. I can feel free to adjust between 60%-80%, but I just need to remember that there is no way that costs 0% efforts. Thinking this way, I wasted less energy on falling into the trap of unsatisfaction. I became more objective. I can accept and live with the reality better.

During Yang yoga, Janet asked us, “when is the beginning and ending of this pose?” Some said it depends on the arm raising up and down, some said it depends on the breathing-in and -out. But to be honest, there is no answer. When I have “beginnings” and “endings”, I will only look at the destination. I will raise the arms so fast to reach the highest point, and put arms down quickly to “finish” the pose. As a result, I will be ignorant of the infinite “dots” in between. But the reason why we practice this pose is not to reach the “points” like a robot. We shall be aware of the whole process.

This idea inspired me. During the past weeks, I was clinging onto an affair with a boy and couldn’t help checking his activity so much. Last week, I decided to take a 40 mins walk at the seaside every night, to give myself some “getaway” time. I came up the idea of looping only one song throughout the entire walk, so that I won’t worry about what song will come next. It actually worked so well, and it’s like a “Yang yoga of my brain” – I can control myself not checking my phone, and only focus on my steps and breathe. When I was walking, the feeling suddenly came to my mind that “Oh! There is no beginning and no ending of the song! Maybe, there is no beginning and ending of anything. It’s just when the causes and conditions arise and cease. I don’t need to think too much about whether my relationship began or ended, because even the ‘relationship’ is just a concept, some causes and conditions. It’s nothing special than any other forms in the world.” Everything I cared and worried so much – I can always anchor back to my left step, right step, breathe in, and breathe out; left step, right step, breathe in, and breathe out… Maybe the world is just as simple as my left steps, right steps, breathe ins, and breathe outs. I do not need to think too much. My mind can always come back.