Jesus, Take the Wheel
[DISCLAIMER: I lost a friendly bet to a fellow divinity student, so I need to write a blog post that combines the following ideas: “bro country”, classical yoga philosophy, and my first vehicle. Here goes.]
It may surprise you, and I’ll admit it freely: I love country music. I’m not talking about respectable classic country from Hank Williams and Willie Nelson, either: I’m talking about (trashy? okay, fine) 2000s pop country hits from Kenny Chesney like She Thinks My Tractor’s Sexy and Huntin’, Fishin’ And Lovin’ Every Day from Luke Bryan. You can unfollow me now, it’s okay, I’ll wait….
BUT SERIOUSLY. Storytelling in country music is so relatable. Thanks to pop country, I can feel things when I’m suffering. I can Kill a Word with Eric Church when I’m hurting in a breakup. I can long for a Better Man with Little Big Town (j/k love you, Bear). Brandy Clark helps me remember that Love Can Go to Hell. Colt Ford tells me what to do if I end up in a brokedown pickup with a 30-rack of beer and a broken heart in 4 Lane Gone. And Carrie Underwood tells me what to do when I hit a patch of ice while speeding through the night: Jesus, Take the Wheel.
In Vermont and Maine winters, I’ve spun out on icy roads. When I was in college, my parents bought me studded snow tires and loaded sand bags into the trunk of my Honda Civic (pour one out for that car, love you bb, #rip). I guarantee that, during my spinouts, though, I did not release the wheel and pray (sorry, Carrie). But I also learned not to slam on the brakes, either: my dad taught me that. In a spinout, I remember that the best chance you have is a subtle balance between maintaining control—trying to keep the wheel straight, for instance, and applying steady pressure to the pedal—and not fighting the car or the road.
In our nightly yoga philosophy discussions at Santosha, we often discuss the difference between abhyasa (abh-YAH-suh) and vairāgya (vy-RAH-gyuh) from the Yoga Sutras of Patañjali (1:13-1:15) and the Bhagavad Gita (8:8). The rough idea is this—abyhasa is the cultivation of a disciplined spiritual practice, while vairāgya represents the cultivation of a certain detachment or “dispassion” from our roiling feeling states. Take “spiritual” as broadly as you like—here, it can mean effort toward personal transformation, self-analysis, or otherwise. B.K.S. Iyengar wrote that “[a] bird cannot fly with one wing. In the same way, we need the two wings of abhyasa and vairāgya to soar.”
TL:DR? Abhyasa is disciplined mindful practice to create flow in our lives; vairāgya means releasing control of the roots of suffering within us; and we always need a balance between them.
And here’s the thing: When I fall out of flow in my own life, I often notice that my practices of abhyasa and vairāgya are out of balance. Let’s use an example:
Entrepreneurship is not for the faint of heart. Founding a business requires taking huge risk and feeling wildly out of control sometimes. As we moved Santosha up to Hillholm Estate in 2022 when we outgrew its birthplace in Phippsburg, the business changed overnight. As of today, we’ve hosted 700+ guests in retreat and served literally thousands of meals, have a staff of 14 incredible people who depend on us for their livelihood, and we’ve gut renovated most of the historic property. It’s a huge, expensive, overwhelming, thrilling, joyful, terrifying endeavor. And it’s the most important work of our lives.
I talk about my workaholism using addiction terminology because, for me, it is an addiction: to assuage some of the terror of growing our marvelous project in Maine, I have worked myself to the bone. I have a superpower, my version of abhyasa: I can work for 16-18 hours straight, day after day, analyzing and refining the business and our processes, methods, team dynamics, and more (that is, until I finally burn out entirely—that stamina is my kryptonite, too.) With this discipline, I try to control as many variables as possible—scheduling, programming, financing, marketing, you name it. To use Carrie’s metaphor, I grip the wheel as tightly as I can while I feel like I’m spinning out. And yet: as a leader, I am also learning to delegate, to release control over outcomes, and to see how the fate of the business unfolds in the hands of our capable staff (and the universe). Identifying and releasing the roots of my suffering (perfectionism, existential fear for the project, etc.)—is a practice of vairāgya.
The ancient yogis and Carrie Underwood know something in common: that we need a balance of discipline and release in our lives to achieve flow. I’m writing this post from a coffee shop in Boston right now: today is our day off. We walked across the bridge through brisk, spring sunshine, from Cambridge to Boston after I finished class this morning. Bear is sitting next to me, his knee pressed against mine, lost in thought while working on a screenplay. I’m freewriting to you, a spiritual practice for me. Pretty soon, we’re shutting down for the day and heading to The Plough and Stars for a pint before an evening date. For me, today represents the balance of discipline and release; effort and rest; diligence and carefree pleasure. I felt flow a few times today, too. As it’s said in recovery circles, take it one day at a time.
Think back to a moment when you felt out of control. Consider how you handled it—with a death grip on the process and outcome, or by releasing the wheel. Or both, perhaps? What did you learn?
