When I go to a workout class, the environment is one of competition. Who can lift more weights, who can do more push ups on their toes, who can keep their burpee form the cleanest after twenty reps. It’s the class mentality to push harder and faster to make you stronger. But here’s the thing about yoga, it’s never a competition. Yoga isn’t a work out class. The purpose of yoga isn’t to beat your neighbor or to push yourself past your limits. Yoga isn’t a competition.
Yoga is about inviting your body to move, to bend, to extend, to contract. Yoga is melding the mind with the body through the breath, and whether that leads to a deeper forward fold or not today, it makes no difference. Even if you are able to bend less farther forward than yesterday, that still makes no difference. Yoga is meditative. Yoga is restorative. Yoga is an invitation for connection.
It can be difficult to look around a classroom filled with students and feel like the least flexible person in the room, but remember that everyone has to start somewhere. Everyone in that room was once where you were. So be where you are. Love your little spirit home, your body. And be grateful for the strength and flexibility that you already have and trust that more will come with time.
“When you plant mango seeds in the ground. Do you go back the next day and expect mangos?
I once had a teacher that said to me, “When you plant mango seeds in the ground. Do you go back the next day and expect fruit?” It is the same with yoga. You cannot try pose for the first time and expect perfection. You cannot do a yoga pose for the twentieth time and expect perfection. Yoga is called a practice for a reason. It is a practice of accepting yourself, as you are in this present moment, in there here and the now. Dear one, don’t look around the classroom and feel frustrated or fatigued, don’t give up on yourself or on your journey. Be grateful to be here, right here, right now.
