Today I was having one of those ugh days! Nothing necessarily going wrong but nothing going considerably right either...the story of my life. So I got up and I went to ashtanga this morning. I love ashtanga. I look forward to it every time I practice. Today I felt really good and pretty strong and then... ashtanga practice begins! I look around the room at all the other ashtangis-yes, I do that! I started not feeling so good about myself. A few of them are so amazing! My hamstring has not completely healed, and I've lost a lot of flexibility and strength because of the tear. So when I do triangle on the right side, I have to grab my ankle because I cannot get my "two peace fingers" to touch my big toe. My side angle hurts like hell and do not even get me started on what the reverse of those two postures feels like. So my mind begins to speak to me..."Why am I even here?" and "Maybe my body just isn't right for ashtanga." and "Your back bends really look pretty bad." I beat myself up like this for almost the entire practice. My teacher says when someone puts us down or tells us something negative about ourselves, that person throws the first dart. Then, we choose to throw the second and third darts at ourselves by continuing to put ourselves down and replaying the ugly words. I not only threw the first, second, and third darts but I continued to throw lots of darts at myself during practice today. At the end of practice, I was wiping off my mat and a woman came up to me and said, "You have a beautiful practice." At first, I had to do the proverbial look around the room to make sure she was actually speaking to me. I almost wanted to ask in disbelief, "Are you serious...were you watching the same train wreck as me?"
My point is that I wasted my entire practice focusing on what I consider to be my faults instead of focusing on how truly beautiful my yoga practice can be regardless of what it looks like on the outside. How extremely fortunate I am to even be standing on my mat today. How grateful I should be that my body is strong enough to carry me through the entire primary series..."peace fingers around the right big toe," or not. How lucky I am to have an encouraging ashtanga teacher. I decided to stop throwing darts at myself (at least for today) and focus on the gratitude that I have for the things I can do. In ashtanga, the postures are simply postures-held for five breaths and then, you let it go without attachment. I will try to keep my practice free from the darts that I throw at myself. Enjoying the sweet serenity on my mat, breathing, and letting go.
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