My start to the year has been mixed. I’ve made some good progress on those loose ends and outstanding projects I talked about last week. I’ve started some good habits – daily (ish) yoga, some good energy work and self-care.
I’m feeling good about 2019 – it feels like a good year.
But. There’s something pulling me back from enjoying it.
There’s a discontentment with being where I am at this moment.
And I noticed when I did my yoga practice today that I’ve stopped doing this (mostly) in yoga.
In today’s practice, there was a posture I couldn’t do. I don’t have the range of motion in my hips and back.
In years gone by, I’d have got annoyed and frustrated with my body, and used it as an excuse to go into some self-criticism, and maybe even given up on the yoga practice (that I’d been enjoying and was good for me).
But do you know how you get to be able to do those difficult postures in yoga?
You show up to the mat, day after day. You do what you can each day.
And with repetition and practice, postures become available to you.
Sometimes it takes a long time.
Sometimes some of the postures never seem to get any easier or looser, but you can usually find a modification to get the benefit of the posture anyway.
I know this.
So after (many) years of getting huffy when I can’t do a posture, I have relaxed and let myself be where I am on the mat. Most of the time.
But when it comes to work, projects, things I want to do, I just want to be there, not here.
I don’t let myself be where I am.
Because I want to be further forward.
But this is madness because I can’t be anywhere other than where I am.
So that inability to be where I am causes discontentment.
That lack of acceptance that in this moment, what’s in front of me is what’s available.
It’s been a pattern for a few years. Whatever project I’m on I want it done because there’s a new, shiny idea lurking on the horizon.
This finishing phase has always been a bugbear for me!
There is nothing wrong with wanting more, wanting different, wanting progress. Without that desire, there would be no forward momentum.
There is also nothing wrong with imagining or visualising a future where you can do a seated forward bend and move more than a millimetre; or all those loose ends and outstanding projects are tied up.
But once you’ve acknowledged the desire and done some imagineering, you need to get back into the present moment with self-love, self-acceptance and grace.
You are where you are…can you allow yourself to be there fully with no judgement, criticism or blame?
I’m going to try leaning into this in February, helped along by the self-love practice in the Fall in Love With Life group, and this mantra I came up with:
“All is unfolding in perfect, Divine timing. I am exactly where I am meant to be in this moment” (pause to enjoy what I’m working on or where I’m at).
Is it something you need to lean into too?
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