I am lucky enough to live right by a great yoga studio. The owner is incredibly kind.  He recently invited me to attend one of his teacher training workshops for free even though I don't teach for him.  A big gift.  I graciously accepted.  When the day came I woke up to cramps and a touch of the blues.  It was effort to make myself go.  Im glad that I did though because my experience was a very tangible lesson in equanimity.  While I was aching deeply in one part of my body, other parts felt relieved to stretch and move in the warm room.  And while I had a touch of melancholy, I was also very grateful and happy to be getting to do what I love. 

Mark Nepo says, "Time and again I am humbled. Broken and opened at once by the mysterious fact that life is all things at all times.  For every birth there is somewhere a death.  For every clarity there is somewhere a confusion.  For every pain there is somewhere a joy. Being simply human we can't possibly comprehend or hold all of it.  But sometimes when we're still we can feel it.  Hard as this is, its worth everything.”

Can we see two things at one and the same moment, like seeing that the wave and water are not separate? There exists a basic mind-state that is free from all dualities and that excludes nothing. This mental experience brings into our perception the presence of our true nature. So I sit with the two truths: the truth of suffering and the truth of freedom from suffering.  And I try to be open to what "wants" to happen. And when I have the courage to let go of my stories about the pain and to experience it fully its like being a skydiver, dancing in the sky even as I'm falling to earth.  The trick is to relax and let go.