Chasing Sensations

I some how ended up going to yoga for overweight individuals.

I have no idea how I did that, apparently I need to read the class description better next time. The class was not physically strenuous but the teacher taught the class in a way that made you connect your body to the ground (all we did was floor poses) in a way I had never practiced before.

She told us to yield to the ground, to learn to work with gravity and how your body responds to gravity.

As we were working through poses she would ask us where our bodies where in relation to the ground, were we working with the ground or pushing away from the ground? Were we searching for a new kind of sensation, instead of settling and being comfortable relying on the ground for stability.

She proceeded to go on a ten minute tangent about how as human kind we are constantly looking for sensations, sensations make us feel alive.

This brought me back to a previous conversation I had earlier in the week with a friend (who also likes to push boundaries) about why we must test fate and taunt death to feel alive.

I came up with that I enjoy being able to see how far my body can go, how far I can push myself. I feel alive when I know my body is not a limitation.

But I do not honestly know if that is what it is...what is it about experiencing sensations and the need to feel that makes us go to extremes?

And beyond that how is "extreme" defined?  Extremes are extremely (pun!) individualistic.

For example, my friend who I was talking with earlier this week loves the idea of high lining and then jumping off the middle of it in a flying squirrel suit.

The idea intrigues me but my idea of extreme is vastly different. I love the idea of running an ultra marathon as my extreme.

And because are ideas of extremes and how we chase sensations are so vastly different, does that make how we connect to one another different?

We will ever fully grasp the other person's perspective?

The sensations that we chase and how we achieve those sensations greatly defines humans as they are.

Are we more drawn to people who chase sensations similarly?

The past 7 months I have been on a journey to redefine and reconnect with my whole self, this has led me on many adventures and experiences and I truly believe people are drawn together who have similar extremes which create the sensation that they need.

It may sound weird, the term "sensation" is a strange way to explain anything, but for me sensations are the way we feel alive.

My yoga teacher told me to work with gravity and yield to the ground, but when we yield how does that make us feel alive?

There needs to a steady tension between healthy yielding and knowing when to keep pushing, because without that where is the point in living?

"The great art of life is sensation, to feel that we exist, even in pain" -Lord Byron