I’ve often joked that I am a bit of a Luddite at heart: happy to use technology when it suits me, frustrated when it goes wrong - and a bit frightened of it.
As a mother to two teens, my children have also grown up in an age where possessing a smart phone is the norm, and where many young - and not-so-young - people spend an awful lot of time looking at their phones.
I am not immune to the pull of my own phone, of course. Nor am I the first to ask: what are we choosing to look at, to spend our precious attention absorbing - and what do tech companies and the algorithmic gods choose to show us? Does it feel like a battle we have lost?
Our ability to focus, to go deeply into something, to spend time reading something that is longer than a few minutes has come up against the quick-scroll of fragmented attention, the swipe of a finger as we move to the next short, dopamine-fuelled hit.
We are promised constant connectivity, but what really happens to intimacy, the relational and what it means to be human? And what happens to purpose, our ability to concentrate - and our ability to tolerate boredom?
Not surprisingly(!) I believe yoga has some answers to this: in our practice we are invited to go slowly, even when the mind wants to go quickly. We are encouraged to pay close attention to our bodies, to become absorbed in bodily sensations, to learn to control our movements more smoothly and skilfully, to connect to ourselves and our own rhythms - in short, to give ourselves unhurried space for breathing, sensing, and feeling.
In the Yoga tradition, the material world is viewed through the lens of the three gunas, the three “strands”, or basic qualities that inform all of creation. These three gunas are constantly interacting with each other, and their dynamic inter-relationship is at the basis of everything we experience:
Tamas is structure, weight and stability as seen, for example, in the form and substance of our own body.
Rajas is desire, movement, momentum and activity; it is reflected in the speed of thoughts, the desire to achieve, the motivation that means we can engage with life.
Sattva is balance, light, clarity, knowledge; it enables self-awareness and understanding.
The pull and push of tamas and rajas are strong and, in one sense, what we are trying to do in our yoga practice is to learn to manage excessive tamas and rajas, and to increase sattwa. Too much tamas leads to inertia, dullness, lethargy: we’d happily stay lying on the floor in shavasana, maybe drifting off for a quick nap. On the other hand, too much rajas leads to agitation, difficulty in being still, even anxiety: we fidget and feel restless, finding it hard to settle into our bodies.
So, movement is vitally important - to help counter the lazy pull of tamas - but moving slowly and attentively helps us resist the impatient push of rajas. Moving in this way also helps settle the mind, and gives us time and space to notice what we are doing and how it feels moment to moment. This kind of attention is at the very heart of our yoga practice. It anchors us in the here and now. It’s a way of cultivating awareness, sensitivity, and care. It also helps increase sattwa.
To choose to slow down is a powerful act. To pay attention takes effort and energy. But it can free us from being manipulated, from permanent distraction, from sleepwalking through our own lives. The seemingly endless crises unfolding around us make it even more vital that we remember our humanity, that we take time to replenish ourselves, and that we have quiet space to notice what is happening and to decide how best to respond. Then we can truly connect.
Mary Oliver puts it so beautifully when she asks us, in The Summer Day:
“Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?”
and, in this extract from Yes! No!, she reminds us to go slowly so that we can see what’s here, now:
How important it is to walk along, not in haste
but slowly,
looking at everything…
To pay attention,
this is our endless and proper work.
Thank you Frankie, wise apposite words a helpful reminder of the benefits of a yoga practice.
Thanks Jane! And you know you are always welcome if you fancy coming back :) It was really nice to see you recently - and I'm loving the way your art is evolving. X