This was just the topic, in my yoga class today. We were doing a variety of poses, and there were some difficult ones in the mix. Specifically, there were poses and practices that were difficult for some individual students. That is one of the most interesting things to notice about yoga. Your yoga is not my yoga. What is simple for me may feel impossible for you and vice versa. We each bring our strengths and foibles and baggage to our mats. But that is also the beauty of yoga. The deeper yoga has to do with all those sticking points. It has more to do with how you are in your pose than what your pose looks like. Yoga provides us with a process to follow. If we keep practicing, we will get better. And it may not even be the ‘pose’ that gets better, but rather how we feel about ourselves attempting the pose. That gets better. What I mean by better is instead of:
‘I suck at this’
‘I used to be able to do this’
‘They can all do it’
‘I will never do this’
‘I might as well give up’
all of that angst and self-criticism and judgement can be resolved through yoga. And over time we may be able to say instead:
‘I will try’
‘It’s ok’
‘I am getting better slowly’
or even,
‘It’s a yoga miracle! I did it!’
Give yourself permission to try, and to ‘fail’. Failure is just success waiting to take wing.
