My yoga class today starts with the teacher letting us know that the change in season brings up a lot. It brings out old injuries, thoughts, fears, etc. Stuff just comes up. So she invites us to notice the stuff when it comes up but to know that we do not have to be with it.

I am so much stronger today. I am able to flow more gracefully, like I am dancing. I am in control of my body and we are working together. My mind drifts to the thought that at the end of the week I will be in Austin for a teacher-training workshop with Baron Baptiste. I received the invitation to attend 6 weeks ago. When I said YES I made up that I would be in the best shape ever by the time it rolled around. Instead, I am just starting to gather my strength back.

I tell myself that it is all perfect. I am perfect where I am now. It is perfect that I didn’t reach supershape. My mind pictures everyone else at the workshop as uber yogified power yoga goddesses. Oh wait, I am here. I am in this yoga class right now. I bring my attention back to my practice. That is my mantra when my mind wanders, “I am here” or sometimes “I am still here”. I am still in this room, on this mat with this teacher guiding me. I am with my breath. I am with my practice. I am with my body. I am still here.

So, I push those thoughts about the weekend out of my head and continue the class, but those thoughts are real. A fear did come up that everyone else who is attending the workshop will be perfect yogis, with perfect bodies, who can do every pose perfectly and I will be this odd blob of a yogi. But you know what, yes! They all will be perfect and I will be perfect too! It doesn’t matter what they look like or what I look like. It doesn’t matter what their poses look like or what my poses look like. We are a group of people coming together to learn from an inspiring man, Baron Baptiste. We will all get something amazing from the weekend. What I get may be completely different what from Yogi C gets. What Yogi C gets may be completely different from what Yogi Z gets, but we will all get. And what we get will be perfect for each of us and the journey that we are each on. What is that journey, you ask? Life! It is one grand journey!

Sometimes that journey comes up as scary, perfect! Life would be pretty boring if it was never scary.

Here is a quote that I copied down over 10 years ago and that has traveled everywhere with me ever since on that same piece of paper.

“If you are never scared or embarrassed or hurt, it means you never take any chances.”
—-Julia Sorel