PhotoCredit: GraduationPanda
The first time I did yoga was at a community centre in my hometown in Wellington, NZ. There wasn't a lot of yoga around. In fact, I think they called the class "calisthenics". It was a long time ago.
I remember doing tree pose for the first time. I remember wondering how the heck anyone was possibly holding this peculiar pose. I remember wondering, really, why I was even bothering to try! Stupid Pose. Of course, tree is now one of those poses I look to as a barometer of how I am doing on a given day. There are days I hold that pose like a mighty oak. There are days I wobble around like a spritely aspen. There are days I am felled, repeatedly, like I am a beginner once more.
In a conversation yesterday, I likened 2020 to doing tree pose on a paddle-board. This year was an advanced class, a master class, in finding balance, ease and frankly focus. Every time we thought we had it, the wind turned or the waves got bigger or some damn idiot in their speedboat set a wake heading in our direction. I will let your imagination run wild as to who that idiot might be.
It was the year of everything being hard, most especially the stuff we thought we knew how to do. School, food, groceries, marriage, cohabitation, parenting, being a friend, being an employee, and - critically - being OK!
A lot of us experienced a lot of not being ok. Even if it was a decent year for us, it didn’t feel all that decent. It was a bit messy. But we made it through. We stumbled to the almost finish line. While it didn’t ever feel like we had it together, here we are with 10 days left in the year and we are mostly in one piece.
I’m so proud of us. I really hope you can reflect on the year and see what you have achieved. As you wobbled and fell, and kept getting up again and again, and you kept trying. Being a beginner is hard work. Especially when you didn’t choose the course of study. When it was imposed on you. And when you had much better plans for the year.
Consider this a graduation. Are you seeing the gains? If you haven’t already, sit down and write a list of all the things you've conquered. Sourdough, cutting your bangs, learning patience, mastering-ish technology, adaptability in spades, how to sit still, how to take breaks from sitting still, how not to F your back from all the sitting still...the list goes on and on.
Take a moment. Look at the good. Look at what you have learnt. Tree pose is hard just as life is hard. 2020 made every day a master class. You just completed advanced life-101. GO YOU! See your gains: graduate, commemorate and celebrate. I’m grading us all an A++.