I was in yoga the other day, minding my own business as usual. I get in and out of there, not make eye contact, trying not to feel awkward whilst putting my thumbs to my third eye and saying, “Namaste.” I’m a crunchy, leftie, granola hippie, but that doesn’t mean I want to hang out with folks like me, for crying out loud. We’re weird and far too prone to violating personal space.

Anyway, I try to make yoga the quietest hour of my week. I pledge to not be a perfectionist, which takes all of my concentration, since perfectionism is basically my personality in a nutshell. I listen to what the teacher says, but if I want to do something else, I just do something else. Sometimes that means laying in child’s pose and humming a merry tune in my head while everyone sweats through their 43^rd chataranga dandasana. If I don’t wanna, I don’t.

I must have been feeling teachable the other day, because for some reason, when our yoga teacher put us in a particularly painful shoulder-stretching pose, I was compliant. It probably has nothing to do with the fact that this yoga teacher is tall and blonde and cheerfully Texan. She calls us babe or darlin’ and says things like “fixin to meditate” or “I can plum near reach my toes with my shoulders,” so basically I have a huge crush on her.

Anywho, ya’ll, back to the shoulder stretch. It was painful. I have bum shoulders to begin with, and this was the kind of “oh lord Jesus please save me why do I do yoga” kind of painful stretch. I was about to give it up and revert to my “I don’t have to do what you say” pose, when Texas guru Barbie said, “Ya’ll…zero in on where you’re holdin’ tight. That’s where you need to let go.”

Basically my head exploded.

Because guess what? I was holding in my shoulder. I was protecting all of those old injuries and fears. I was afraid that letting go might make me lose it altogether. But I tried it. I let go. My shoulder dissolved into blissful, heavy, thirsty happiness.

I’m going to be Captain Obvious here – we so do this in our real lives. We hold. We protect. We build a little wall, a little cocoon around our injuries and fears and hurts. We don’t trust letting go – if we let go, who will pick up the pieces?

But I learned in a very real way that letting go leads to healing, to relaxation, to freedom. I asked myself:

Where am I holding onto anger?

Where am I holding onto un-forgiveness?

Where am I holding onto “the way it should have been?”

Where am I holding onto an unhelpful desire?

Where am I holding onto circumstances, or narratives I’ve designed in my head? Stories I’ve told myself about myself…and others?

It’s time to let go, ya’ll. Bless our hearts, we try to take care of ourselves. It’s no one’s fault; it’s completely natural. But, it reaches a point where it doesn’t serve us anymore.

And that’s when we know it’s time to let go.

Photo by Jacob Postuma on Unsplash

I’m going to say something distinctly un-American here.

I don’t think we always have to do our best.

Now, before you ship me off to live with the French, let me explain.

Scene:

It’s been a long summer. It’s been hot. I’ve fought multiple injuries and chronic pain. People and creatures I love have fought illness, sadness, and injury. I’m really into politics, unfortunately, which is a complete a shit-show. The shootings, the terrorist attacks, the hate-mongering online, the arguing…I’m just tired. Run-down-needing-a-month-on-the-beach-with-a-margarita tired. I’m grumpy and uninspired. You feel me?

I’ve soldiered on in every area of my life: trying to work harder, smile bigger, love more, love better, run faster, clean the house more thoroughly, get more organized…you know, being the change I want to see in the world and all of that. This is who I was created to be, and I generally have un-ending energy for it.

Yesterday, I found myself feeling physically and mentally beat up on the drive to yoga. I was literally falling asleep at the wheel. I almost turned around, because yoga is another place where I feel like I should give 150%, pushing myself to do my best and I didn’t have it to give.

But, I realized that all of that expectation is self-inflicted. So, I walked into class, determined to not do my best. I was shooting for staying the whole hour, even if it was asleep in child’s pose, forehead planted on my mat.

As the flows began, I chose to ask myself with each posture, “How can I feel BETTER at the end of this pose? What will energize me rather than deplete me?” Sometimes the answer was holding WAY back from my capabilities. Other times it was pushing a little further into a pose than I had gone before. And a few times, it meant skipping a pose altogether and planting my forehead on the mat and breathing.

As you can imagine, I felt so much better at the end of class than I did the beginning. The only thing I changed was to listen to my body and my spirit rather than my expectations.

What if, once in a while, we gave ourselves permission to fall short? Without guilt?

What if we changed the narrative from one of “always striving” to “always listening”?

What if we glorified working smarter rather than working harder?

Now, I’m not suggesting we start dropping the ball in every area of our life when it gets a little uncomfortable. What I’m suggesting is that by listening to ourselves, we can actively rest in some activities to give us energy for others. Maybe giving 80% in yoga allows me to give 120% with my kids.

Another way to say it is:

Rather than doing our best, maybe we do what is best.

Every pose is a puzzle.

Every puzzle has a solution. It’s just about putting the pieces together.

Find the balance sweet spot. Too little push and your feet will stay cemented to the ground. Too much, and you’ll launch onto your face. (All photographic evidence of these attempts has been destroyed.) The balance sweet spot is in the center and can be found through a combination of curiosity, playfulness and focus.

Tap into your strength. You’ve trained and practiced. You have the tenacity and the muscle memory. Channel it. Dive into it. Trust it. Hold yourself up by the power of your will and your heart. Breathe and let your strength do the work for you.

Dare to fly. Gravity only limits the timid. Be courageous. Your imagination is your only boundary, so open up the top of your head and allow your dreams to lift you into flight. Ingenuity and invention drive realization.

Wait, am I talking about yoga? Or life?

My thoughts have exploded into a million pieces and are floating flotsam above my head. I try to reach up and catch them and piece them back together, but they turn to dust on my fingertips. I let go and look up and they’ve formed back into broken bits of gravel, irritating my mind.

I arrive and sit on the mat, placed in my favorite spot where the sunlight filters through the window; and I begin to rein in my breath.

I stretch my hips back and my hands forward, my forehead on the ground, and begin to breathe deeper. I am asked for more honesty and so I make a couple of minor adjustments. The floodgates open and the tears begin to fall. I don’t stop them while I begin to move through the first poses.

Then the practice heats up and I begin to focus – stretching each pose long, as slow as my breath will allow. I find length and fluidity in my body and my breath. I dance with air, with my heart. I meld bone to muscle.

I scoop all of the intentions and light from those around me and gather it near my heart, allowing them to fill me with goodness. I can feel their breath on the back of my body and I accept it.

All of the thoughts floating above my head have begun to take shape and are spinning into a focused light, entering the place in my brain where they belong, where later I can make sense of them.

I don’t think now; I just move – my mind in complete stillness and connectedness with my heart.

I am full.

I practice. I play. I laugh and smile and then I rest, sinking into the clarity that was with me all along.

You see that beautiful tree-pose picture? Yeah, that’s not me. Not even close.

My downward facing dog is not so much downward as it is awkward.

Today, I was bent in half, or as bent-in-half as a woman with the mobility of an 88 year old can be, and my thighs were staring me right in the face. And not in a good way. “Acknowledge it, then let the thought walk right by you,” I reminded myself.

And then, during extended side angle pose, I fought the urge to angrily push my body into the correct position, to stretch it into submission, to make it beg for mercy. I had to channel my inner freak-out into something productive.

Welcome to my first month of yoga.

I didn’t start yoga in January as a New Year’s resolution, or to find inner peace, or for an excuse to buy new lulus. I started because, frankly, I need to improve my hip mobility for riding horses. Pretty simple. I cannot possibly sit my horse’s gigantic trot in an English saddle unless I am more flexible.

But I should have known that it would capture me. Halfway through the second class, when I was sweating and fighting to appear as calm as the 70 year old woman next to me, I knew I was hooked.

Here are a few lessons I have learned during my maiden voyage into the vast ocean of yoga:

There is nothing…NOTHING…harder than being still.

If your arms are shaking and you feel like falling down, realize you can’t fight tension. You can’t give in to tension. You have to partner with it, become comfortable with it, use it. Hello, life lesson.

It’s counterproductive to suck your gut in. For one thing, you can’t breathe. No one cares what you look like, so for god’s sake, stop thinking about it. Let your belly’s freak-flag fly. Out and proud and breathing big.

You will have 14 bazillion thoughts during a session. Everything from “I HATE yoga” to “I wonder how they really make kombucha?” Rather than fight to empty your mind, just watch the thoughts wander past. If you’re lucky, you will have maybe five millisecond-moments of quiet-minded bliss. Maybe next year, it will be 10. Then 20.

Begin each practice with intention. There aren’t really PRs or numbers to quantify your success, so you have to find something else. Maybe today it’s focusing on deep belly breathing; and tomorrow, it’s flowing through your vinyasa more fluidly. Sow intention, reap satisfaction.

Each session is YOUR session. No one else’s. Not the instructor’s, not the 25 year old yogi next to you. It’s yours. Focus in. (Ignore the mirror, Deborah. For god’s sake, IGNORE the mirror.)

Overall, I would say the biggest lesson has been partner with my body, to talk to it gently and ask for what I want. It’s finding my edge and asking nicely for just a little bit more. It’s not being concerned with where I fall in the scheme of yoga-greatness, but allowing myself an hour to be where I am, without judgment.

I walk out into the day knowing why it’s called a “sun salutation…,” it feels just that good.