Photo Credit: Rainbows
It’s not going to come as news to any of you that I love yoga. Deep love. ‘Don’t get between me and my yoga' kindof love. My first real studio was in New York and frequented by Juilliard dancers. I think I have told this story before. It's the story where I spend a LOT of time feeling deeply insecure about my inability to do most of the poses. Where I spend a lot of time comparing myself to everyone else in the room.
And a lot of time missing the point.
The point isn’t how well you do the pose. It couldn’t matter less. The point of yoga is to link breath with movement and unleash the power of presence and biochemistry that results. That's a little reductionist but I had a dream once where I was saying exactly that while being interviewed by Oprah. So it must be right.
I tell husband-Mark this every time we practice. You know, in that helpful, loving wife know-it-all way. "Honey, don’t worry about the pose, just focus on your breath". And moments later I hear the audible strain of him doing the complete opposite.
He knows. I know. I still hold my breath. I still strain. I still look at him doing Bakasana like a damn PRO and contain my inner pissed-off’d-ness that he can do it better than me. Mr ‘I picked up yoga 18 months ago’. "Honey that’s amazing" I say - doing my best impersonation of an enlightened yogi who understands we are all on our different paths. While thinking ‘WTF’ under my strained breath.
I want what he’s got AND I want what I’ve got. And I want it now. Veruca Salt level impatient, unrealistic and demanding.
Impatient, unrealistic and demanding - on myself.
This is the stuff burnout is made of.
It’s not a pandemic issue. It existed long before. It’s just the list of what we want has grown. Our quest for perfection in that small corner of our life expanded exponentially at the start of the pandemic. An already untamed beast just got unleashed from its cage and is roaming, hungry for gold stars for excellence achieved in the home. We expect to be teachers and daycare and cleaners and chefs and - oh yeah - full time professionals.
We talked about subtraction last week. I know you all nodded as you read and many of you emailed me. You get it. It's not complex math by any means. So, what did you subtract? Anything? I know you had good intentions. I also know you well enough to know that #stuff got in the way. Why do I know? Because it’s hard for me too.
This is the realness. You know better than this. You know better, but you are not doing the things you know you should do. We are in auto-pilot or we are coping or we are barely holding on. And It takes a massive force to exact change. That’s time, energy and focus that you just don’t have spare.
The realness is that you are too busy to change. That’s a massive problem. That is the problem.
Next week I will share active steps you can take to change. Today’s homework is to decide that you are NOT too busy to change. To see that excuse for the bullshit it is. Pardon my language, but this is the realness.
We are all where we are. Looking around the room at everyone else is just not helpful. It’s an exercise in futility to add things to your list that don’t spark joy (we love you Marie Kondo) or take you towards your dreams. It’s worse than that, sadder than that, it makes you less of who you truly are. But no more! Welcome to the realness.