My Sugar Squat

yoga photos compliments of freedigitalphotos.net

Lately, I’ve been thinking about friends that have overcome huge obstacles–maintaining sobriety, losing weight, running a marathon, getting a book published, or staying body-hair free. They all share one trait that helped enable their success: they can all live with a little discomfort.

People who wholly dedicate themselves to goals requiring a Herculean effort find a way to face their resistance. In other words, they can hold a squat. They can hover in the purgatory between sitting and standing, quads aching, hamstrings quivering, breathing and sweating—maybe grimacing and cursing JAYSUS HELP ME DEAR MOSES OF THE LORD OF HOLY WISDOM SWEET MOTHER GODDESS OF WOMYN—but holding the squat nonetheless. Or something even more rigorous than a squat, like a human A-frame ski chalet complete with window.

People learn to sit in moments of discomfort.  They breathe and know it will pass. Their discomfort may not stem from literal squats or contortionism, but from slight annoyances, distractions, or tiredness to intense cravings or resistance. Refocusing on the goal requires plugging along when you’d rather do anything than write 900 more words, or be anywhere besides at the mercy of Boris’ Gulag-ersize at 5 a.m.  It probably doesn’t require sucking on Sprees so hard that you get canker sores, incessant toggling of yourself between various social media accounts, or IMing about terry cloth sun-suits with your friend for 45 minutes.

I realize eating three bowls of cereal before bed (or “serial” as I like to think of it) and stealing your child’s Runts might not compare to drinking excessively or gambling away your 401K, but it comes from a similar tendency to give in to resistance. Remember the old college “I think I’ll just read in bed?” Rather than seeing the squat through, you (you, not me!) rationalize “I’d probably be better off studying the poses from my bed.” Before you know it, you’re pausing mid-vinyasa to fill up your cornflakes, and from there you’re one milk-refill away from Screw off Warrior One, I’ma watch fours episodes of Weeds and dream about yoga during my first REM cycle.

Everyone needs a chill space and  to spoil themselves.  The behaviors I’m referring to, though, are those we do almost reflexively at the slightest feeling of discomfort or resistance, rather than as a reward for work accomplished or true relaxation. What I’m learning from my uber-focused friends is that it is possible to sit in this squat and do nothing for a while—or conversely, stay with the task at hand even when you don’t necessarily feel like it—instead of, say, going to see if anything has changed in the refrigerator in the past 45 minutes or checking your blog stats to see YOUR FUTURE by way of that unrecognized California url.

So I’m experimenting with my sugar squat.  I’m stopping for at least three nanoseconds to ask myself if I really want or need this treat/snack/Redi Whip amuse bouche or if I just need to breathe for a few seconds, drink a glass of water, and go finish this essay.

I recognize this effort doesn’t compare to the enormous effort of kicking a full-blown addiction or changing your life forever, but I want to learn to live in a little bit of discomfort—to stay present without giving up —and strengthen my squat  in the process. I’m hoping that by practicing living with discomfort I can not only lower my sugar intake, but that by increasing my discomfort tolerance I might also improve my patience with my kids, have the courage to dig into my manuscript again someday or start a new one, and avoid a full-fledged tantrum every time I walk into a bathroom that looks like a Blue Man Group experiment gone horribly wrong.

This morning I did my yoga video. Yesterday I had no sugar. Right now I feel a little more centered and peaceful, and almost like I could throw a tiny man in the air to make my own human A-frame.