Holding the shape of a life mid-transition

sthira sukham āsanam.

It is one of the most quoted lines from the Yoga Sūtras of Patañjali. It has inspired thousands of classes and workshops, and appears in almost every teacher training manual I have ever come across. It translates simply as: “Posture should be steady and easeful.”

It is a clear, sensible, uncomplicated instruction for āsana, and in that very clever way yoga has, it becomes an instruction for our lives in general. I keep returning to it because I am trying to understand what it asks of me now. An āsana is a fixed point, an arrangement of the body that is somewhat agreed in advance. What does steadiness really mean when life is shifting and nothing is fully resolved?

I am in France, ostensibly writing for the Svecchā Teacher Training manual, the yoga school I am collaborating on. I am also meandering, wondering, dreaming, reading, fantasising, and worrying about all manner of things. I am waiting to hear back from my final university choice. It was the ambitious application, the stretch, the dream rather than the sensible option, and it is unlikely to result in an offer. Still, I cannot close it down before it resolves itself. Waiting is part of the process.

At the same time, I am trying to work out how to juggle two, perhaps even three, centres of our family’s life: London, Barbados, France, plus the spaces in between. Can I hold my relationships close over distance? Who will take care of my dogs when I am not there for extended periods? Added to that, my boys are also on the brink of launching into their own post-school lives, their own universities, their own departures. Everything feels as though it is loosening and reorganising at once. If my life were a Christopher Nolan film, this would be the big CGI sequence where everything warps and flips upside down.

I have also been trying to learn how to read, understand, and write within the context of academic philosophy. That is another CGI sequence all on its own. You have to sit with a question. You have to look at it from different angles. You have to notice where the argument tightens and where it softens. You cannot rush to an answer simply because you are uncomfortable with ambiguity.

The discipline of that feels familiar.

Āsana, at its best, is not choreography. It is not a collection of shapes strung together. It is an inquiry. It reveals where we brace, where we collapse, where we rush to get out. It shows us the pinch points and the places of ease.

Right now, my life feels like one of those longer holds.

Steadiness in this context does not mean gripping. It does not mean tensing, or rooting down so forcefully that I become immobile. It does not mean locking everything in place out of fear.

Steadiness is a quiet commitment to remain present while things are unresolved. It is the willingness to continue doing the work in front of me. To keep writing. To keep reading. To keep planning carefully without forcing an outcome.

When I trained as a teacher, one of my teachers offered a simple exercise. When you think you have your theme, ask yourself, “So what?” Then ask it again. Keep asking in this descending current until you reach the root of what you are really trying to say. It tests for depth and understanding, and prevents you from slapping a sūtra or a yama onto a sequence and calling it wisdom. It asks for honesty.

If the theme is steadiness, so what?

So that we cultivate patience.

So what?

So that we can hold a posture longer.

So what?

So that we build strength.

So what?

So that we do not fragment when life does not immediately give us what we want.

That is the point.

Patience is practised steadiness. Strength grows from staying. Ease begins to emerge when steadiness is no longer forced. The sweetness does not come from comfort. It comes from discovering that we can remain intact inside uncertainty.

This season of my life is asking for that kind of practice. It asks me not to rush toward a solution or apply a sticky plaster to quiet the discomfort. It asks me to hold the larger posture of transition. To feel its edges. To soften where I can. To strengthen where I must.

Sthira is discipline without rigidity.

Sukha is softness without collapse.

Steady enough to stay.

Soft enough to move when it is time.