In Ambitious Pursuit of a Type B Personality

Beautiful Readers,

So it struck me like a bolt of lightening the other day in yoga class that I have no problem doing all the things I was taught to do as I came of age in the Reagan-era souped-up rat-race that was New York City of the 1980s. I dream big dreams, I head fearlessly towards my goals, I pursue the things I want, I speak out when I feel I should. What I can not do, however, is, um, shut up and take a back seat, even when maybe I ought to.

Newsflash: Passivity and submission are worthwhile skills when appropriate. Powerful even. So if I believe in the power of passivity then why do I feel afraid I’m owed a wedgie from Gloria Steinem as I write?

Seriously though. As I work actively on meditation and relaxation techniques these days, I can’t help but notice what a bad attitude my subconscious has about letting go of control. Of anything. Of breathing. Of how far my hands should be from my body when I lie in corpse pose after yoga class (aka Savasana-the yoga pose of total relaxation where you lie on your back, with your palms turned upwards)

 In the past, when I saw personal training clients, I used to be amazed by how many of our, typically, rather professionally successful clients, really had a hard time lying in a relaxed Savasana position for a mere three minutes after they had worked out. It was kind of adorable really, Masters and Mistresses of the Universe, nervously fidgeting on the floor after only 30 seconds, blinking their eyes open and closed as every minute went by, to ask me if their three minutes was over yet. Once you believe that the sun has risen upon you and that you should seize every moment–it can be really hard to stop seizing and let a couple of those minutes get away free.

I mean, I understand why passivity is not more popular. After all, it’s a very hard sell. The rewards of passivity are not so obvious–mostly because a passive postion is all about what it is not. And in the fast paced and flashy world of thrill-a-minute, subtlety-less, fast-is-sexy, bold-is-beautiful– making a case for the absence of stuff, well,  just seems kind of boring. And all those things you may have heard about how ”there is no light without the dark”, “there is no form without emptiness”, just seem like fancy language used to impress college kids, or worse, by power mongers trying to get over on someone. 

But I would like to propose that being able to be electively passive is just as powerful as being supurbly active. It is the thing that can take you from sprint to marathon–or from sprint to really long sprint if sprinting is your thing. It can also mean the difference between having an ordinary successful life or a deeper capital-S Successful life.

The garden variety successful life would be an existance where you actively hit all the societal “marks” for success adequately, work, family, home…etc. without really knowing why you are doing these things and whether or not they are increasing your contentment overall. The capital S Successful life, in contrast would be one that embraces taking the time to retreat from time to time into yourself, feel your properly humble and grateful place in the universe,  to make sure you are hitting your own marks adequately–with the goal being contentment–society, and your learned expectations, be damned.

Now, before you quit your job, leave your spouse, and send the kids to boarding school–there does seem to be a correlation between conventional kinds of success, and real happiness, for most people. We’re social animals, and that’s OK–but with a little passive (read: judgementless) reflection on your day to day package–a little stepping back and seeing things as they really are as opposed to the way we project them to be–couldn’t life be richer?

Thanks for reading!

Alix Florio CEO Beautiful Fitness

www.beautifulfitness.com