Letting go

2 months into Yoga Teacher Training.
The most valuable skill I learned, is how to enjoy. I can feel life is incredible. Not that it's incredible, now. It always was, but I was too stubborn and miserable to allow myself to feel it. I was so stuck with this idea that I had to have certain things lined up to be happy. I've never been much of a materialistic person, so the things I "needed" weren't physical. But I (thought I) needed close friends, a happy family, dogs, respect and validation from others.. Pure, honest things that we're told would make us happy. But that is still dependent on others..

Something my teacher said during the first week of training, hit me hard.

There are no rules.

When she said that, my entire being shook. My mind was completely blown.

Rules are man-made. They don't exist. So naturally, if something happens that breaks a rule, we get upset. Our entire world is flipped upside down. And it's difficult to adjust because you set yourself into this perfect little world of  how things are supposed to be. So much that if things aren't the way they should be, we don't know what to do. We react because we're uncomfortable. The reactions are anger, frustration, and worry. We waste so much energy trying to control our environment, and that makes us unhappy. But the truth is, we can't control our environment.

This idea.. this phrase "there are no rules", freed me. I began to feel happiness for no reason at all. Just because, I wasn't concerned anymore. There were no more rules to break, and I was set back to my natural state of pleasure. Consider it my factory reset button.



I had several epiphanies over the last couple months while reading The Untethered Soul, and How Yoga Works. I highly recommend the read.

I discovered that everything is temporary. Everything. That's a liberating conclusion. One chapter in The Untethered Soul explains the events in life as passing by. Naturally, everything comes, and then they go. In the book, it describes how ripples are formed when a drop of water meets still water. The ripples appear, and then they settle back into stillness. If we actively try to stop the ripples from forming, we will cause more ripples. All we have to do is let it pass (do nothing!), and then it will reset to a neutral state. Same with bad experiences. We are traumatized because we relive those experiences. We grasp on to them and don't let them go. Then, we avoid anything that might trigger a response similar to what we suffered in the past. So from that moment forward, you restrict your living experiences and start building your life around avoiding your fears.

 

 

I spilled my blueberry/pineapple smoothie in my car today. I got a decent amount on my white work blouse, on my pants, and on my seats. I remember a time when something like this would send me into a frustrated fit. Today, it didn't even phase me. I cleaned up the car seats as best as I could, and I'll probably have to scrub the crap out of my blouse and maybe I can get the stains out. I still had half of my drink left, so I enjoyed the rest of that and went back to my desk. About an hour later, I glaced over at my book and saw this pretty little stain on the pages. It made me smile.

 

Also! I stopped re-reading my posts to spell-check or edit the organization. I'm just typing, and posting now. I used to spend more time editing, and re-writing sections than writing the whole pose, because it needed to flow just right. So much that I would completely axe and entire post because I couldn't get it to sound right. (What is "right", anyways?)

No more. And I'm okay with that now.