Things Are Looking Up

“Where the eyes go, the body follows” is an old adage that was drilled into my psyche long ago. “Look up, go up” is another one. I heard them over and over again in yoga classes, and now I say them in my own classes because of their simplistic truth – where you are literally and figuratively placing your attention is the direction you’re heading in.  

A deeper thought still….have you noticed how, when it’s a rainy day or a cold day or you are feeling fearful or stressed, you look down a lot? Your attention is drawn in too, as if one’s energy radiates at a smaller circumference around the body. This is neither bad nor good, it’s just interesting, right? I mean, looking down can save your life when you are going down steep steps, so there’s for sure an importance in “watching your step.”  

However, prolonged looking down shrinks us. It contracts the front body and shortens our vision. Too much looking down sets our sites on a closer range of possibilities (low hanging fruit?). I was on the metro-north train recently, and for a solid 90minutes, pretty much every single person was looking down at their phones. I wanted to shout out, “Hey, how about looking up for a moment? A little expansion – in body, mind & spirit – would do us all some good.” 

In yoga, where the eyes are looking, one’s drishti, is part of the pose by design. The drishti (near or far, down or up, etc) is cued! Genius! For instance, in a standing back extension, the eyes and the body go up. In downward facing dog, the eyes and the body go down. The drishti is a tool, used for the very practical and obvious, like tapping into all the various neck ranges of motion. It’s also a tool used for the very esoteric, like shortening or lengthening one’s sightedness. I believe looking up wakes us up while looking down calms us down…both can come in handy, right? 

Let’s bring our eyes to the sunlit sky tonight or perhaps to the sunrise tomorrow morning, as the sun rising or setting is a perfect spot to look, to dream, and to open up body and soul to the endless energies and possibilities. Watching the sunset or sunrise is an exercise in wellness. Not only are we taking in beauty by looking out at the trajectory of the sun, our gazes are out and up – the perfect counteraction to staring down at our phones. 

To conclude, I’ll use the wise words of singer/songwriter, Mod Sun, “Look up. Now look down. Up is endless. Down has an ending. Be sure to look up.”

Yup...look up and go up. 

Let’s Move! 🤗