My year of self-acceptance.

So, I just turned 24 a week ago.  And I've decided to give myself the best birthday present ever.


I'm slender enough and have a beautiful body, and yet I spend so much time telling myself that I have to loose weight, that my love handles spill over my jeans, and that my abs are flabby.  Everything I eat I wonder if the skinny people in my life would eat, and I often can barely enjoy my food.


I'm incredibly happy as a yoga teacher, and yet I beat myself up constantly for not yet having a master's degree, and wonder if being a yoga teacher is "good enough." I tell myself that my own happiness is not enough, that I should in fact be earning hundreds of thousands of dollars to save for "the future."


I love practicing yoga, and yet I rarely truly allow myself to enjoy it, because of my chronic pain, and because my body is so tight. I spend so much time focusing on what I can't do in asana that I don't enjoy the things that I can do, or that I have been able to add to my practice, due to abhyasa (practice) and vairagya (non-attachment) like gomukhasana arms.  Six months ago, my fingers were miles from each other, and now they touch on both sides.  Do I enjoy that and support myself in that? Of course not. I'm too busy telling myself that I can't be a good teacher because I can't do a hand-stand. Fun times.


I absolutely adore my partner, who is brilliant and wonderful beyond measure.  Yet, I spend so much of my time beating myself up for the fact that he is smarter than me, that he contributes more to the relationship than I do (and no, I have no idea what that means) that I often feel like I don't get to enjoy the precious time we spend together, because I am so obsessed with doing, being and having enough.


So, for my birthday, I have decided that I am giving myself a gift that I, as well as everyone, absolutely deserve.  I am going to accept myself EXACTLY AS I AM, one day at a time, with love and compassion.

Yay Self-Acceptance!

I am going to enjoy my food and continue to make nurturing choices that are not based solely on calories, but also on taste and how it makes my body feel.


I am going to let go of my need to make more money. When I don't tell the universe to give me what I want, it always (ALWAYS) give me what I need.


I am going to release the results of my yoga practice, and continue to play and grow however I can, honoring my tight and still injured body. I will do what I can to stop competing in class, and be on my own mat and love it.


I am going to let my beloved be his own beautiful self, and not try to emulate him.  Instead, I will honor him and his profoundly loving treatment of me by trying to see myself the way he sees me - as a beautiful, wonderful, smart and passionate woman who contributes enough just by being myself.


The oddest thing is, after a week of living this way, I find myself doing more cardio exercise, which I had constantly beaten myself up for not doing for months.  I find my food is cleaner, and I am having much more fun.


As my birthday "goodie bag" to all of you, I wish more than anything to give you this gift too.  Just for one day, see what it would be like to passionately and absolutely adore yourself no matter what.  Tell the constant vrittis (mind-stuff) that tell you you aren't enough to politely bugger off, and do something nice for yourself, just because.


See what happens!

Yoga Mind, Yoga Body - Parsva Bakasana

I think one of the reasons I love yoga is the mystery of it.  Truly, sometimes it doesn't make any sense to me.  There are periods where I practice every day for hours a day, and my body feels as unflexible as a steel pole.  Other times, I don't practice at all for a few days, come back and feel like jello. (Or, as jello-ish as I can be, which is probably closer to frozen-yogurt in consistency.)

A few days ago, in Chrissy's class, we practiced arm balances, culminating in Parsva Bakasana.  Here is Chrissy demonstrating beautifully (Parsva Bakasana is the last pose.)

It's SUCH a gorgeous pose when done correctly - the asymmetry from the front (of the legs to one side) creates a certain symmetry on the side (with the shoulders being level with the knees) that is totally breathtaking to me.

However, when I attempted it, I felt much closer to  

It was just one of those days when I felt like I didn't know my knee from my nose.  I understood the mechanics of the arm balance, but somehow it just wasn't translating into my body.  I left the class feeling a bit miffed, but quite certain that with months and months of diligent abhyasa (practice), I would eventually get the hang of it. (Ah, how challenging it is to detach from a practice when it doesn't go your way!)

However, the next morning, I woke up, and decided on a whim to try it at work.  (Yes, I love my job - I work in a playground. Did I say a playground? Sorry, I meant a gym.)  And voila!  We have lift-off!  Did it look like Chrissy's pose? Not quite.  Was it recognizable as parsva bakasana?  Absolutely.  

It was such a lesson to me in how silly it is to decide a timeline for things that I have no control over.  I truly thought it would take me months to even get off the ground, and there it was, happening the next day.  Also, it was a fabulous experience to just try something without expectation of it actually working, and...guess what! It worked!  If it feels good to you, try it sometime - take something that you "know" you can't do, and do it anyway.  Even if it doesn't happen, you may be closer than you think, and even if not, it's probably a good excuse for a good laugh!

Have a great day, and keep practicing.

P.S. For more information on practicing parsva bakasana from Chrissy's very funny perspective, check out her blog. It involves a golden retriever. Just saying.