hello, dear friends.
it has been much longer than i intended. and i still owe you my reflections on the last of the five yamas (attachment) which is cosmically hilarious to me because of all of the yamas that is the one that the universe has been relentlessly pestering me to practice. throwing opportunities to “let go” and “find acceptance” at my feet again and again. so in that sense, attachment is, of all the yamas, perhaps the one that should have been the easiest for me to write about—but it turns out all of those opportunities to practice have also kept me away from my computer and away from any sort of headspace that would allow me to write.
so instead of writing about the fifth yama, i am writing about beginning again. because that is what i am doing now. and that is what we all have to do if we want to keep growing. and it isn’t always as easy as it sounds.
as a yoga teacher, one of my favorite parts of class is when you lead everyone into a challenging balance pose, like dancer or crow, then you leave them there long enough to make sure everyone has fallen out of the shape at least once. you do this on purpose. because more than seeing how long they can stay in the shape (although, that is important too), you want to see how they recover. to make sure that everyone in the class has had the opportunity to practice how to begin again.
we do this over and over on throughout an asana practice. we do it even more times in a meditation practice when each inhale or exhale becomes a doorway into a new beginning. when each fleeting distraction becomes a reminder to recenter and refocus.
but the more we pay attention the more we can also learn to do this in our “real lives”.
as someone prone to all-or-nothing thinking, this idea of chances and opportunities and beginning again has helped enormously, and the more i’ve allowed it take root in my life, the more it continues to help me. for example, i have longstanding issues with food. eating too little, too much, too often, not often enough, etc., and for a long time, one of the things that made those issues worse was my inability to normally moderate how i was thinking about food. in my head, i could either being super super “good” which led to usually not eating enough often enough. or i could be super super “bad” which usually led to shame and guilt spirals and also giving myself stomach aches.
from my mid-teens to mid-twenties, i ping-ponged back and forth between these extremes, believing i was trapped in a never-ending cycle that i could do nothing about.
and that’s where the thing about beginning again became really important. because it meant that even though i wasn’t (and am still not) doing anything close to “perfect” (which side note, for me “perfect” just means eating in a normal way that nourishes my body and also doesn’t cause too much obsession or unnecessary suffering along the way), i can still take steps toward progress. and then even if i veer off course, i can try again. and then eventually maybe the trying gets a little less effortful. maybe all of the sudden it gets really really hard again. and then maybe it gets a little easier again after that. and so on.
the same thing happened for me with rock climbing. and let me be clear: i am not good at rock climbing. but i am okay at it. and i am definitely better at it than i used to be. and that didn’t happen from me going 5x a week for 6 months or sticking to some insane workout regime (which if you have the energy/time/discipline for that lifestyle good on you, i simply do not).
for me, it happened slowly over time because i just kept coming back. even after weeks or months away.
and for that matter, the same thing happened with yoga. over even more time and even more lapses in my practice.
so i guess my point is: zoom out. take note of the practices (eating, moving, making, etc.) that you keep coming back to. the ones that bring you joy, or solace, or closer to the person you most want to be. and if there are some that you fell out of or set down along the way, maybe this note can be your doorway into picking them back up. into beginning again.
as always always always, if you have experiences or thoughts or ideas, i’d love to hear them in the comments.
When we think that we have arrived - We haven't. Begin again.
When we think that we have the answer - We don't. Begin again.
When we think this is the end - It's not - Begin again
When we hate ourselves for giving in to addiction - We must stop, love ourselves, and - Begin again.
And here your are, today. 😁