“When striving for perfection, we think we have to get somewhere. When moving into fullness, we know we have to open our hearts to where we are.”
MARK NEPO
I’m always sharing with my students and reminding myself that perfection is a self loathing habit of our learned minds. We are taught early on to keep striving towards this invisible identity of perfection. And we feed our little self the belief that what we are is not good enough.
The longing continues to haunt us as a way to punish and beat ourselves on a daily basis. Exhaustion follows because we can never reach this impossible ideal.
Maybe for a moment in frozen time, we can pretend to be that perfect person. Ah, the pain of emptiness when we fall from this harsh judgement and realize that nothing is permanent, especially the illusion of perfection.
To accept ourselves right where we are in all of our imperfections and with all our bruises of living life, the actual feeling of being content with ourselves is the profound moment of forgiveness.
I learned wrong! Life is not this constant need to get outside myself. My joy and happiness is not conditional on the outer but arises when I fall in love with my true self, this imperfect person living a full and joyous life with what I have and where I am—right here NOW.
This is not an easy practice when my life is filled with obstacles, and I’m tired, overwhelmed, and frustrated with the world I’m seeing with my outer eyes. I need to go inward, to move my mind into the state of yoga and start to experience that I have a choice where to focus my thoughts. I shift from doing to being, focus on the movement of my longer exhales, and feel the physical grip of tension relax into a feeling of release. I let go of that inner need to get life; and instead, I feel my life.
In that moment, I touch the fullness of my life is pure blessing for all of myself, messy, chaotic, confused, and uncertain. I need the constant reminder to be kinder and gentler with myself, to not just sit in my pain, but to make a daily effort to move in another direction.
We all want to be more compassionate, but it must start with ourselves. It’s not very compassionate to beat on myself or resist change either. My daily practice is to quiet that inner task master, so that my reactive mind isn’t just going into its habit of self loathing and seeing life as a thing to conquer and get. In the midst of my confusion, it’s an opportunity to embrace what is being presented and to allow it to move through me.
Yes, sadness is being presented, worry is being presented, and yet with the same awareness, sweetness is being presented, ease is being presented, and love is being presented. To hold the opposites of all of it is the grace of being present to the fullness. It’s being alive to the awe and mystery being presented. It’s living fully in the abundance of all of me. Self acceptance and self forgiveness become my gateway into my true self.
When my mother passed, I found all of my report cards, even those from nursery school! Yes, my sweet record keeper held my life even in her death.
I found one remarkable story about myself that explains so much of my true nature. I must have been three at the time and in the report, the teacher made observations on my behavior. She wrote that I would refuse to play musical chairs since I didn’t want to push anyone off a chair.
I can totally remember this as even today my heart rate goes up just thinking of rushing to get that chair to stay in the game. Instead when the music went on, I would dance around the room and remain still when the music stopped. I can fully recall the love of just being able to dance and not fight for a chair.
I laughed and cried reading this since it explains everything about my soul. For me, dancing as always been the answer to all my frustrations and stresses. Asana is my dance. But sometimes in moments of deep despair, I turn the music up and wildly dance around my house. Dancing calms me and allows my mind to release the hold of a belief that there’s a lion behind me ready to eat me.
Yes, the sympathic nervous keeps the adrenal rushing even though intellectually, I know there is NO LION. My body is wired to fight and survive for my existence. I am taught that somehow I must fight or run to get away from the terrible fate of being eaten.
Daily, with this false belief, I am feeding the memory of learned habit and existing on false energy. And as children, we learned that if we don’t get that chair, we lose the game. Is purpose of the game of life to win at all costs? Who said that I had to beat someone to their chair to validate my existence? Childhood games are competitive becoming the game of business, politics, and the game of striving.
All of us learned that life is out there to get and be seen. When we identify with our outer shell (or as I call the body—the “container”) and when we attach our worth to the job, the role, or our stuff, we call this AVIDYA, the root of all our suffering.
I must have decided early on to give my chair to another and dance to my own drummer. Life is always presenting opportunity to live fully, to share our abundance, and to thrive in our joyous truth. We just have to practice shifting that habit of believing the lie, that perfection would be obtained by getting that chair.
When one actually feels being ENOUGH, one has more to give. In the teachings of yoga, it is not enough to survive, we must honor the thriving of life.
Yes, living is filled with potholes and challenges, and I’m aware of the obstacles. But by practicing inner kindness and letting go of our inner judgement, we can offer a chair to others and still feel safe and steady in this very fast and furious world.
I invite all of us to dance more, laugh more and be enough as imperfect people living perfect lives!
Many blessings,
Laura Jane