Many years ago, I did a 10-day silent meditation retreat. I sat for hours troubled by a profound sense of crookedness. I did my best to sit up straight and still. I kept leveling my shoulders. I kept lifting my chest. And every effort to be correct made me feel like I was swimming against a strong current. It wore me out and drove me crazy. So I finally gave up trying to be correct; I let the current of crookedness take me.

I felt myself shrivel up. My chest collapsed; my back twisted. One shoulder lifted and my head hunched forward. I felt like a crooked old witch. Yep. That was who I was.

But I didn’t stick there. I stayed with the current and it began to straighten me out. Like untangling a knot, I felt myself move in strange, convoluted ways, but as I watched, I moved naturally and instinctively toward symmetry and balance and ease. That was when I began to grow out of my scoliosis.

It’s a strange paradox that just when you are yearning for change, you should settle down with contentment, but you can’t really proceed until you know where you’re starting.

In the eight steps of raja yoga, the skill that precedes contentment (santosa) is cleanliness or purtiy (saucha). That meditation retreat was clean. The surroundings, the schedule, and the expectations were simple and orderly. There was nothing undone. That purity allowed me to settle down and face something that had disturbed me for decades. When I did, with full acceptance, I began to come through the other side.

It’s hard to make daily life that pure. This has always been the role of monasteries and other spiritual retreats. Even so, I know that if I am feeling restless and discontented, I should probably do the laundry and pay my bills. Vacuum. Fulfill or simplify responsibilities.

When nothing is undone, you will settle into contentment. When you are content, you will naturally and instinctively flow toward what you value.  That’s a very big claim, but it is easy to test. Try it.