To Have Known

Today I believe I truly, for the first time in my life experienced Radical Self Acceptance. I was thinking about 3 yoga teachers who are the most influential to me-- 3 teachers who I would love to emulate when I step onto my mat as a yoga instructor in just under two weeks. In the past I have worried and giving myself grief for not being exactly like one or the other. "Why am I not as technical as he is?" "Why is my yoga not as physical as hers?" "Why don't I feel as graceful as she is?" It is toxic to the mind to think this way, to think that one is not good enough for not being exactly as someone else.

Today, as I was laying in savasana and, as it so often does, a thought suddenly dawned on me: there are ways in which I am similar to these instructors and ways in which I am not. And what a blessing for all of it! These are three people who I look up to more than anyone else and to be able to see even the tiniest bit of myself in them and them in me... It is such a beautiful thing. It felt to me like instant rapture. I thought and really, truly felt, "I am so happy that I am me!" What I am is perfect for me. And what I am is me. It was truly Radical Self Acceptance.

We close our yoga classes with the saying, "I honor the light in you that is the same light in me. When you are in that place in you, and I am in that place in me, we are one." I have never understood this mantra quite so clearly as I did today, having finally accepted/embraced/fallen in love with the light in me. Nothing is quite so freeing as relenquishing your hold on the battle against being your Self. To be your Self is the easiest thing you can do.

In continuing with the "high" of Radical Self Acceptance, I was in another yoga class this evening and I couldn't help but love myself more everytime I corrected my alignment, or fell out of a pose or just plain was not "perfect." I've never smiled so brightly inward before. I was just being me and being with me and that was the greatest thing I could possibly have been at that moment.

I've come to see that it is all in the way that we are towards ourselves. Taking a step back from the mental abuse I am capable of unleashing on myself and turning it into something positive is the key. No, I'm not exactly like those other instructors but I am an interesting mix of so many things and I will bring something new to the table. That one thought, that one idea changed the entire day for me and indubitably it will change my entire life henceforth. It lead me to acceptance.

In yoga class, when attempting a pose that has been difficult for us, maybe it is a certain backbend or a binding pose or what have you, we often say that once you do it for the first time, you will always be able to do it. You'll know what it feels like to do it and it will progressively get easier for you to do. Self acceptance is the same way. This is the first taste of it for me. Feelings wane and change but having found this feeling, if even for a day, I know that I will always be capable of it. It is with me now. And because of that I am with me.

I truly honor the light in you that is the same light in me.