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Today is the first day of yoga since I got hurt four months ago. I rolled out my mat, got my props ready, and began to make the long, arduous way back into my body.
And you know what? That’s messed up.
It presupposes that because I can’t perform the same physical things today that I could before I got hurt, I am not in my body. I have to get there. It’s like, because so many muscles have stiffened, shortened, weakened etc., I now have to hoist my theoretical 50 lb. pack onto my back, make sure I have plenty of water and provisions, very good hiking boots and start making that scary, pain in the ass trip back up the mountain to the top…where “my body” is.
No.
That is not yoga.
So many of us go into our yoga classes with varying degrees of this mentality. We’re comparing ourselves to other people in the class, or to the freak of nature on the cover of [Name of Your Yoga Magazine Here], or — more often than not — to that version of ourselves that we used to be. The one that is no more. The one we sometimes mourn, or hate ourselves for not being. All I can tell you is, just go buy some popcorn and settle in for the movie we make about what all of that means.
Instead, we can put our arms around out experience and say Yes. Even to the negative self talk…
