Squeeze the Juice

Don’t forget to stop and drink it all in, K?

Isn’t the purpose of life, as Eleanor Roosevelt so gracefully put it, to “Live it. To taste experience to the utmost; to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience”?

Week to week, would you say you really experience life to the utmost?

I used to be the first person to put my hand up and say, unless I’d made plans, reminded myself it’s safe to fly by the seat of my pants or answered to some inspired inner spark of genius (rare), I had a tendency to jump on the treadmill and keep going as if there were imaginary tigers chasing me to the end of the year.

These days, partly because I’m wise-ing up with age and partly because running a studio slows me down somewhat, I’ve managed to realise the importance of slowing to taste and experience. I’m not always good at it but I make it more of a priority.

It’s about the journey, right?

I read something last week when I was on an epic little adventure doing some guest teaching over at one of my favourite places to ‘pause’, Aro Ha Adventure Wellness Retreat on the South Island of NZ. It’s from Pema Chödrön and I shared it with the group during class one day and thought you might like it too.

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There is a story of a woman running away from tigers. She runs and runs, and the tigers are getting closer and closer. When she comes to the edge of a cliff, she sees some vines there, so she climbs down and holds on to the vines. Looking down, she sees that there are tigers below her as well. She then notices that a mouse is gnawing away at the vine to which she is clinging. She also sees a beautiful little bunch of strawberries close to her, growing out of a clump of grass. She looks up and she looks down. She looks at the mouse. Then she just takes a strawberry, puts it in her mouth, and enjoys it thoroughly.

Tigers above, tigers below. This is actually the predicament that we are always in, in terms of our birth and death. Each moment is just what it is. It might be the only moment of our life, it might be the only strawberry we’ll ever eat. We could get depressed about it, or we could finally appreciate it and delight in the preciousness of every single moment of our life.

This is taken from ‘The Wisdom of No Escape and the Path of Loving-Kindness’

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Sucking the nectar out of life doesn’t always have to be about thrill seeking, mountain climbing, disconnecting from the world for ten days or hitting big goals. Sometimes it’s simply being still to savour the sweetness of whatever you’re feeling in the moment.

Enjoy all your moments, yogis,
KK

And ps. hope to see you on one of my whats on. In light of the above subject, if you want to learn how to open that crazy, beautiful and complicated part of you we call the heart –  that shuts down in fearful situations, keeping you from experiencing the richness of life, look at the Rocking Your Heart retreat I’m doing in Uluru, Australia with friend and Mentor, Michael Trembath.