I like yoga. I’ve been practicing steadily since 1995. I’ve had some good teachers in my life, and one great one. Sofia Diaz. She makes yoga about your life and in her classes I have learned many things about myself and the way the world works. I was practicing in my living room the other morning and something that she often says entered my head. It has entered many times before, but this time I made a connection between it and how effective I am at getting things done, being creative, and building the best relationships I can.

“Yoga begins at the point of failure.” On the yoga mat it means staying in asana (loose translation: a given yoga pose) until you can stay no longer. Your body starts to give up, but more relevant and salient is your mind starts to give up. When I start to feel the point of failure, I often think of it as being on the edge.

Back to the other morning. In approaching the edge of my asana, I realized that’s where change happens. That’s where you grow. It’s where you create. It’s where you connect. In my yoga that morning, I started connecting that to other aspects of my life.

For example, I collaborate a lot in my life and my work. I also lead and facilitate a lot of collaboration efforts. When I’m talking to others about a plan of action or brainstorming ideas, if I stay where it’s comfortable, I can get to something that will work. But if I can stretch my understanding of the problem at hand and reach toward others and their ideas, the collaboration can go much further and the output will be levels above.

The added bonus about getting to the edge is that whatever you do there, not only is it better, it gets done faster. The double bonus is that you feel great when you are there. There is nothing but you, the others in your awareness, and what you are creating.

Now, back to that morning yoga in my living room. Moving through asanas, I let my mind sit with the concept of always being at my edge. “Wow, I would get a lot done, I’d be doing it all really well, and I would feel great all the time”, I thought. All of the sudden the phrase “living at your edge” made a lot more sense.

My mind then wondered how could I get to the edge more often? How could I stay at the edge? How could I get myself back to the edge when I got too far away? By that point, I was in savasana, the final yoga asana called “corpse pose”, where you lie on the floor on your back and spend no effort on anything. The edge of letting go. I let the questions go. More about this in future posts.