Getting to the core...

Have you ever had one of those moments when you realize you have overlooked the obvious for a very...long....time...? Of course--we all have. We call them epiphanies, getting hit on the head with a brick, a light bulb moment, or one of my favorite catch phrases of the new millennium, "the ah-ha" moment.

Yesterday, I went to yoga, but it wasn't just an ordinary class. I arrived in time for a session that has been canceled (oops), and the instructor was kind enough to continue anyway. I'm not sure if 75 minutes of personalized yoga instruction is a good thing if you are the type of person who prefers to blend in with the other wobbling trees and eagles, or who feels like her bird of paradise might look more like a chicken skewering itself, but I survived. In fact, I did more than just will my way through the undivided attention of my masochistic instructor. I had (wait for it)....an epiphany moment.

As a bit of background, I am a project manager who has opted out of work for a while so I can finish my research on my thesis. For a constant workaholic, this has been a challenge. I'm finding myself to be balancing a love/hate relationship with freedom, and at the same time I'm being wonderfully distracted by involving myself in activities that one-by-one make a difference with positive social and environmental changes.

In this 1:1 yoga moment, we spent time working on our core strength, which is why today, I am leaning against a stack of five pillows to hold me up as I write. After the floor work, we returned to standing poses to work on balance. I have always concentrated on stabilizing my teetering leg while trying to lift the other, but yesterday I was instructed to think about my core..yes, the muscles that were still quivering from the earlier attention I had given them. "P'shaw," I thought, but I gave it a try, mainly because there was no way to escape the eagle eye of my nemesis-I-mean-personal-instructor. Ignoring my shaking leg, I concentrated on drawing in my stomach muscles while still breathing. While I focused on my core, I found my balance stabilized and my other leg floated into the air with the grace of a ballerina (actually, it lifted off the ground and I didn't fall over).

And then it hit..the proverbial brick on the head. How many things do we make more complicated because we lose touch with the core reasons for why we are doing them? Relationships, exercise, even work. Small things poke at us and nag us and cause our focus to shift away from what is actually holding us there.

What type of projects are you involved with that are helping our social or environmental causes? How many are going smoothly because everyone "gets it" and the focus is still on the original scope, or core? How many are floundering, struggling to stay upright because the energy is being channeled to what seems to be the stability factor but is really just a part of the process?

It's easy to be distracted by what draws our attention the most..squeaky wheel syndrome, etc. What my unassuming and extremely focused yoga instructor reminded me yesterday was that the goal is centered on the core. Teetering balance can be synonymous with creeping scope, and once the attention has shifted away from the core, the success of the overall undertaking is on shaky ground. Root yourself on the core, and you'll stand strong.