Is life just so tough that it’s always going to be a struggle? Is it just reality that to accomplish anything, we have to kick and force our way to the top?

I don’t think so. I think very often what makes things so hard is when we’re trying to do things in some way other than our own. What makes things so hard is trying to follow other people’s rules, other people’s paths, to get into other people’s lives.

Life can get easier, and it’s not a matter of dropping your goals. It’s a matter of getting into your own life, and creating your own way there.

Of course, extremely tough things happen. Family members get sick. We lose people in our lives. Can you navigate with some measure of calm through that kind of pain? Sure. Is it still going to hurt? Yes, a lot.

But what about everyday life? Have you ever seen people going along like every goal and every bump along the road is such a hugely frustrating event? Have you been in that struggle yourself?

Before meeting Tara, I spent a lot of time in the traditional yoga world, at many of the established schools in New York, Los Angeles, and India. It was fun, getting into something new. I met lots of good people here. But what always puzzled me was, why is this all so hard for everyone? How do we take a room full of adults, and make them suddenly think it’s such a struggle to move their left foot next to their right? That certainly doesn’t happen in a room full of kids. Kids just move. So what’s the problem here?

The problem is in the rules. Traditional yoga tells all of us adults that we’re not capable of doing this on our own. Want to do this pose? Memorize these 12 steps. Want to calm and focus your mind? Good luck, you’ll need the guru to give you flight clearance here.

There’s always a complex set of rules to follow, which we’re hearing from that person at the front of the room, and they know because their guru told them so. If we’re lucky, we can stand in line and someday get the sacred transmission right from the guru himself! And then with great fanfare and suspense, the teacher performs a pose! Often not very well, often with great struggle.

These aren’t my rules. These complex guidelines are just things that other people came up with, as they went about their own lives. That’s nice. It can make for good study, and maybe it can support us along our own way. But what happens if we start thinking “I can’t do it for myself. I can’t find my own way. I need someone better than me to tell me the ‘correct’ way.”

Follow that path, and we stop creating our own lives. We become less capable, less healthy, less happy. This is what I’ve seen happening in the traditional yoga world. Memorizing all these unbreakable rules, giving up their freedom, people are becoming less capable in their lives, rather than more. People are using yoga to hide from difficulties in their lives, rather than lift themselves out of difficulty. Yoga can do better. People can do better.

Steve Jobs summed this up in a really good way:

At some point you realize the world has been set up by people no smarter than you. You see the world isn’t something you need to fit into. It’s something you get to create yourself.

When Tara and I created Strala, we didn’t think the world needed another style of yoga. But we did think these traditional rules had to go, because it was clear they aren’t working for people. We traded rules for freedom, and rigidity for expansiveness. Rather than following other people’s rules to get into other people’s shapes and other people’s lives, now people are simply breathing, feeling, and moving into their own bodies, their own intuition, and their own lives. People get to relax, even when things are hard. People get to create what they want, and find that they are amazingly good at that.

We can all move very capably and inspiringly in our own lives. You just need to see this life as belonging to you. It’s yours to create what you want, and you are the best person for that job.

-Mike

About Strala Yoga Training

Strala combines the movement and healing wisdom of tai chi with the form vocabularies of yoga, tai chi, qigong, and Traditional Chinese and Japanese Medicine, to help people release stress, move easily through challenge, and live radiantly inspiring lives.

It begins with a mindset, that says our best way to get where we’re going is to feel good along the way. It also works miracles for whole health, helping us to find ease in our bodies and minds, and create the right conditions both for healing and optimal performance.

In our Strala Training Courses, you learn to shape your destiny on every level that counts, from your psychology, chemistry and neurology, to your chromosomes and even gene expression. The unique set of skills you develop – for connecting with yourself and others, unblocking your energy, healing what needs healing and accomplishing challenge with ease – uncovers your ability to create the life you want, and be an inspiring leader to the people around you.

Who’s What’s and When’s of Strala Yoga Training