Stepping into my Power

This past weekend I started my 200 hour yoga teacher training with Power Yoga Canada, the place where I fell In love with yoga, through the practice that has helped me begin learning how to love myself. I’ve been in the “almost” phase twice before, I backed out of the training, because of all these stories I told myself in my head. “I’m not ready yet. I’m not good enough to be a yoga teacher. I’ll never hold space in the room for other yogis like the teachers have for me. It’s too much money. People in my life are questioning why I’m doing it.” So I let those stories run me, I let them overpower the feeling in the pit of my belly that this training, this place, is where I am meant to be. But not this time. I actually almost backed out the week before. I started making excuses to convince myself. But I ultimately decided to just show up on day one, and boy am I glad I did.

I have never felt more connected or more safe than I have felt after two days in a room with 35 strangers. I had previously heard a bit about how the training makes you all best friends but that idea didn’t resonate with me until I was part-way through day one, sitting in my chair  thinking “wow I’ve never said that out-loud and now I just raised my  hand, stood up, made eye contact, and said it.” There’s a thread of intimacy that is undeniable in vulnerable sharing, maybe we all avoid it quite often in our day to day lives out of fear. I know I did. I know I still often do. I anticipated going right into anatomy for yoga, the history of yoga, and being responsible for understanding/memorizing it all. I know we are going to learn that, but that is not at all how the program started. We started with two full days, 9 am- 8pm of self-inquiry. We began with a power-point, sitting in chairs, learning about ourselves and having the opportunity, if we chose to, to share what was coming up for us by standing up, facing our new friends and speaking our truth. One of my main goals for this training was to speak out even if my words didn’t flow how I imagined they would from my head, I was going to do it anyways. I’m proud of myself because I did about a handful of times over the two days. I’m proud of everyone who was with me too.

Each night when I left the training I was surprised because I was ready to turn inwards to reflect but I was not physically exhausted at all. I felt a bit tired due to  the depth of the topics we were exploring but I felt awakened, inspired and actually ready to tackle anything that  came my way, including my own self-limiting beliefs which I’ve written about a little on my blog previously. I found it particularly hard to explain to my family and close friends though because I didn’t know how to put the feelings into words, or how to  describe how I felt more connected to this group of people who I had just met than many people I have been around for years. I didn’t know how to explain how I am moving into a fresh perspective of myself, without wondering if they would think I’m crazy. Then I realized I really don’t care if they do anyways because I know I’m just waking up.

I’ve written before about how the voice of fear/doubt can be a regular intruder in your mind, so much so that you mistake that voice for you and you believe it  every time it tells you that you cannot achieve something, that something is available for others but not for you, that you need to stop day-dreaming because it’s not going to happen. But in the past couple months I realize that I’ve been living in a state of anxiety and feeling like I have no control because I have let fear consume my thoughts and I have been stagnant in my growth on a spiritual level. I have been worrying about the future, feeling inadequate, wondering how I’ll ever have a job that truly resonates with me, feeling forced to fit into society’s expectations which feels suffocating at most times. This past weekend opened up this portal inside me that I was scared to allow because I didn’t want be overwhelmed, but I feel ready now. I also realized something new about the voice of doubt that can run my life too. Fear does not only show up in obvious ways, through various statements beginning with “I can’t do this.” Or “I am not worth it.” Fear also shows up as deeply imbedded understandings of who I am as a person, that defines my identity and thus shapes the reality I create for myself every day. In other words, fear shows up like little puzzle pieces, inter-woven into the deepest part of my understanding of who I am, how I relate to others and how I navigate every day life. For instance, I identity heavily with my introvertive essence, my desire to be alone to reflect and often isolate myself. But my understanding of being an introvert limits me, and shows up as a voice of fear because when I am feeling social, or feeling like I need connection with others, the self-talk that comes up tells me that I know I enjoy turning inward so I should stop earning for connection because I won’t enjoy socializing anyways. So this story that I tell myself that I am more  happy when I am alone, limits me from new opportunities to enjoy public socializing, to meet new people, and to find a balance between group socializing and personal introversion. How ironic that the qualities I have come to claim as who I am also hold me back.

Another theme that I have based my identity on is the fact that  “I am non-confrontational so when someone does something to me or others I disagree with,  I just need to sit back, shut up and see how it plays out without hurting anyone’s feelings too much.” This belief is so deeply embedded in who I believe I am and who I ought to be that I realize I remind myself of it constantly. When I feel violated or seriously hurt by someone close to me, I replay the scenario multiple times in my head, make excuses for them, recite what I wish I could say to them and then if I say anything at all it ends up being probably the exact opposite of what I need to get off my chest. Then that energy festers, it weighs me down, it makes me feel heavy and tired. But I never say it, because that is not who I have accepted I am, so I live in the box with this non-confrontational identity I have created for myself.

Furthermore, I also have gotten so comfortable with reminding myself that “I am independent and I’ve been hurt previously when I give my love to someone else so I’m better off alone” that I block my own opportunities for intimacy on a romantic level, out of comfort with complacency. Then I put the blame outside of me, when my mind wanders over the what ifs and why haven’t I questions about dating and love. I’ve accepted independence as one of my natural traits, as a building back of my identity, so I am often blocking my own opportunities to find love.              

There is so much self-reflection going on right now for me but I couldn’t be more open to what I can learn from it. I am finding it hard to insert myself back in my daily routine, going around places in reality and wishing I could connect everyone, even random strangers to this type of self-reflection. I know that all I have control over though is doing my own work. Over the weekend we also dove into “rackets”, which are stories or fronts we tell ourselves about people in our lives that define how we view them in every circumstance. So basically we have accepted a judgement we have made about each person in our lives as “who they are with a specific story-line” and it shapes everything as we move forward with them because it is the under-pinning of our limited understanding of them. We run rackets on everyone, and it affects us because we can explode out sideways, for example at our best-friend because they never pick up the phone when you need them, because you have subconsciously pre-judged and determined before-hand that they are selfish, self-absorbed, etc. These rackets are what cause us to explode on people who matter to us over something so small, because we are really releasing a whole load of energy that has built up around our overall judgement of their personality. We are unable to see their side, to appreciate their story and their interpretation because we are blinded by our need to be right. Rackets are what keep us from connecting to the ones we love, and instead of making up over a fight we would rather be stuck in our own rightness so we don’t even talk to the our loved ones, sometimes for years when there’s family drama as an example. I know I am an empath, so I consider myself relatively good at seeing other people’s side of the story. But I am now opening up to the possibility, which is the reality, that I clearly run rackets on every person that matters to me in my life and although they rarely cause complete physical separation they insert  emotional blocks that prevent me from intimacy with them. An overall judgement I carry inside of each person that matters to me will undeniably contribute to our conversations, our conflict and our opportunity to connect.

I think I could keep writing quite a bit longer but I will finish here. I invite any and everyone who is reading this to take the time to reflect on how your judgements of those in your life affect how you treat them on a daily basis. What can you do differently so that you can have intimacy with those who matter to you? What  can you let go of? Can you stop needing to be right all the time? I am going to practice this, starting with bringing awareness to every connection I have. Likewise, can you think about what boxes you have put yourself in that define your identity? I know for a fact that these boxes serve you in some areas of  your life, but can you take some time to think about how they limit you? For example, can you not make this decision because you are indecisive, or is it because you have accepted that indecisiveness defines you, and thus that’s the story that runs through your head whenever it is time to make an important decision. So instead of focusing truly on the situation at hand, you are running play by plays in your head of the previous times you’ve been indecisive. Because that’s who you are right? Or is that just who you’ve convinced yourself  you are? The same boxes that you think free you and define you hold you back from stepping out of your comfort zone, which can be a scary place, but I encourage you to jump there with a whole lot of faith, I promise I am trying to do the same.