Yoga and the Art of Working with Insecurity

A Sunday in the Park, nothing more delightful than animals and children laughing! Two of our most vulnerable -- children and Geese -- enjoying each other.

Feeling insecure lately? Read on!

New York City is finally coming out of its shutdown, but the pandemic is still raging on in parts of our beloved, yet troubled country – sadly due to much willful denial. Racial injustice is front and center in our collective awareness, as opposed to being buried in back pages of the news, where it all too often has been. Unemployment is in the double digits, and my two beloved work/life passions – teaching and acting – are still shut down. It’s all enough to make one feel very insecure!

Yet, I am hopeful.

I’ve often referred back to an interview I saw in the early 2000’s that Bill Moyers had with Pema Chodron. Among the many memorable quotes I remember hearing Pema say was this one (paraphrasing): 

When an old culture is dying, the new culture will be formed by men and women who are not afraid of insecurity.

I think her comment was so foretelling! Here we have a president who is hyper-insecure and who tries to hide it by bullying and bashing others. Contrast that with the presumptive Democratic nominee, Joe Biden, who is seemingly not afraid to show his insecurities, vulnerabilities, and fallibilities. If Pema is correct, perhaps we are in a period where an old culture is dying and a new – and hopefully better – one is forming. Hopefully!

As practitioners of yoga and meditation, we get to sit back and observe our own insecurities play out. And rather than give into our habitual pattern of running away from our insecurities, we have the increased capacity to let them play out, not deny nor run away from them, and hopefully develop more compassion along the way. Pema offers us more guidance here:

In the process of discovering bodhichitta (our spiritual warrior nature), the journey goes down, not up. It’s as if the mountain pointed toward the center of the earth instead of reaching into the sky. Instead of transcending the suffering of all creatures, we move toward the turbulence and doubt. We jump into it. We slide into it. We tiptoe into it. We move toward it however we can. We explore the reality and unpredictability of insecurity and pain, and we try not to push it away. If it takes years, if it takes lifetimes, we let it be as it is. At our own pace, without speed or aggression, we move down and down and down. With us move millions of others, our companions in awakening from fear. At the bottom we discover water, the healing water of bodhichitta. Right down there in the thick of things, we discover the love that will not die.

If we are going to be able to be useful in any way to ourselves and to others, we must be willing to touch our insecurities. We must be willing to see our fears, vulnerabilities, and failings, and not run in the other direction. And fortunately, yoga and meditation provide the perfect conduit for these energies to flow and ultimately be transformed into something useful. 

As Sharon Salzberg, another prominent western Buddhist meditation teacher, says here:

There is a saying in the Chinese tradition: "If you want to understand the nature of water, look at the waves." If we look deeply into the waves of phenomena of the body and mind, we will see the 3 characteristics that are, according to the Buddha, the nature of life: change, insecurity, and egolessness.

Life is an ebbing and flowing from one part of our true nature to another. I don’t know, really, that as we grow older that we ever don’t experience insecurity. But I do think that as we grow older, we develop more of an ability to not let our insecurities overwhelm us. And hopefully, as we age we bear witness to more and more change to the point where it doesn’t bother us as much when things do change. Probably most importantly for us as yoga and meditation practitioners is that our practices over the long-term begins to quell our ego.

The yogi and author, Sadhguru, says:

‘I do not know’ is not a negative state of mind. Every discovery has come from this realization.

For sure, during this period of the pandemic, all of us have awoken each morning experiencing “not knowing.” For sure, it’s caused feelings of insecurity to arise within. For me, I had to reimagine how Keoni Movement Arts, the nonprofit I founded, was going to operate. It took a lot of enduring the daily grind of waking up each morning, acknowledging there was a lot I didn’t know, and as I asked more questions than I had answers for, being open to the answers somehow appearing. For sure, I have had many new realizations and made many new discoveries along the way during these past 3-1/2 months. As uncomfortable as the feelings have been, the experience also gave me a new sense of confidence in my ability to be able to figure things out. I acknowledge now that none of this would have happened if I wasn’t open to accepting “I do not know.”

I really do think that insecurity is going to be seen as the new machismo, and vulnerability will be seen as the new sign of strength. For the sake of our beloved experiments with democracy, I surely hope I am right. For now, I can only suggest that as yogis/nis and meditators that we seek strength through being vulnerable.

Lastly, during these turbulent times, let us not remember one of the Buddha’s important teachings:

With gentleness overcome anger.
With generosity overcome meanness.
With truth overcome deceit.

Let’s use our yoga and meditation practices to ride the waves of insecurity and transform them into something that is useful for all. Let’s start by being gentle and generous towards and truthful with ourselves.

May you ride the waves of your insecurities, …
May you embrace “I do not know”, … 
May you discover the love deep within yourself that will not die, …
For the benefit of all beings everywhere.

Aloha with Metta,
Paui Keoni Chun

Talk about feeling insecure!