When No One Was Looking

Yoga is frequently heralded as a modern day cure for whatever ails you. While I am generally suspicious of superlative statements like this, in my experience yoga has been an exceptionally beneficial physical and mental exercise. It has helped me gain strength, reduce back pain, and recover from emotional injuries. Yet recently I discovered that my years of practice are partly to blame for neck and shoulder pain I am experiencing. How did that happen?

My physical therapist tells me that it is very common for people to struggle with neck and shoulder pain, and it often stems from how we sit at our computers–shoulders hunched forward, chins tucked. Most people are in PT to learn how to improve their posture by drawing their shoulders back, broadening their chests, and extending their spines. Despite the fact that I also work at a computer all day long, I have the opposite problem. My upper spine is straighter than average, and with less curvature certain muscles in my back and neck are predisposed to being overworked.

When I started attending yoga classes a decade ago, I often heard instructions to "draw your shoulders down and back” and "extend your spine" to find a more upright posture. These movements were easy to feel in my body and before long I had unconsciously developed a habit of regularly making these adjustments, even when they weren't cued. While that is healthy movement to practice, there is equal–and for me, more important–work to be done in the opposite direction. Without placing my attention on how I was moving daily in my practice, I was unintentionally creating muscle imbalances.

As I thought about how my lack of attention on the mat had contributed to physical injury, I began to wonder about other areas of my life. Where else was being on autopilot causing me injury? How often did I unknowingly establish a habit without directly examining what is best for me? It wasn't hard to find examples. Like maintaining that one-sided friendship year after year. Or holding onto a job even though it doesn’t utilize the talents I am most passionate about. Or what about snacking during every waking hour of the day?

Each of these situations requires my attention so I can clearly identify what I need. Maybe I need to end the friendship or maybe I need to set firm boundaries to protect my time and energy. Maybe at work I can take on additional responsibilities in the areas of my strengths, or maybe I need to find a different position that feeds my passion. And I definitely need to stop putting things in my mouth all day long. That one should be a no-brainer!

Life is busy, we move fast, and it’s easy to unknowingly fall into routines that don’t benefit us. If we take time to examine what we are doing and what we actually need, we can start making intentional choices instead of letting our habits choose for us. We can better align how we live with how we desire to live. It is often uncomfortable work, because we are confronted with changes we need to make in our lives. Yet the result is less self-injury and more self-love. 

Give Yourself a Push

Once you tap into even the smallest amount of curiosity about your reactions and patterns, it seems that you begin to notice them all the time. It’s ultimately a good thing, and I credit this curiosity with helping me to identify all sorts of unconscious behaviors that impact my relationships with others. But one day as I told a friend some new insights I had gleaned from a situation we had discussed at least a dozen times before, I realized that I might be overdoing this introspection business. I clearly had a better understanding of myself, but the situation hadn’t changed. In fact, I felt stuck.

My friend could relate to my struggle. She said having self-awareness was sort of like seeking The Wizard of Oz—once you decide to peek behind the curtain you can’t go back. You can’t unknow the fact that there are opportunities for personal growth all around you, and you can’t unlearn the ability to recognize them.

If you want to live with intention instead of unconsciously reacting to whatever life throws your way, it is necessary to practice self-awareness. Yet our well-meaning and often intense desire to grow as humans can sometimes hold us back. The more we learn about ourselves, the more we recognize how much we still have to learn. We can become so wrapped up in our self-analysis that we effectively become paralyzed, hesitant to make decisions because our understanding always feels incomplete.

I realized I had fallen into this trap late one night when I stumbled upon a simple quote by William Hutchinson Murray: 

Nothing happens until you decide.

Instantly I understood why I felt stuck. I was learning more and more about my core truths, yet I hadn’t translated that knowledge into action. In order to make the hard decisions, I thought I needed to understand myself even better. But the truth is I will never achieve some perfect level of understanding, because personal growth is a lifelong journey. I have to learn to take action anyway, even when it feels uncomfortable or scary. If I don’t commit to taking action, I'll continue to feel stuck.

Self-awareness is good work and I will continue this study, but now I know to push myself a little bit further. I will ask myself to decide on the best action to take based on who I am today. I will trust the quiet answers that rise from within. I will have compassion for myself when my decisions don’t produce the intended results, and I will celebrate the fact that I made them.

Running To Stand Still

The only thing that’s constant is change.  I recently heard this sentiment expressed in response to someone talking about the difficulty of dealing with change. I think it was meant to be reassuring, but it might have landed wrong. Think about it–I’m going through a hard time, I’m a ball of stress, and you say I’m always going to feel like this?

I’ve been thinking about this idea lately. I don’t know if it’s because I’m going through a few changes myself or because I’ve noticed that it’s not limited to me. It seems all my friends are experiencing change in their lives, too. And wasn’t that also the case three months ago? Six months ago?

Though perhaps so frequently used it can’t help but sound trite, the statement that change is constant seems undeniably true. In both minor and significant ways, something is always changing in our lives, year to year, day to day, moment to moment. I am just getting settled into a new daily routine with my sweet old dog, and already it’s time to send her back to her dad’s house. I was just starting to get back into a steady yoga habit when my allergies went into overdrive, eliminating downward facing dog and all other inversions from my practice. Or I can consider more meaningful examples of change in career, relationship, and sense of home. How I’d just started to pursue my own friendships and interests when my now ex-husband and I uprooted to move across the country, unconsciously reinforcing our codependent ways.

I’ve logically accepted the fact that change is constant, so I feel like I should not be threatened when I’m unable to find the ground under my feet. Yet for some reason I am always in a mad rush to get to the other side. Instinctually I cling to this notion that once I get through a particular change, I will be able to plant my feet on the ground. I’ll feel stable and all will be well and life will be easier. I just need to get through this move, this schedule change, this career transition, this relationship, this period of mourning. Yet the changes keep coming–sometimes by choice but often not.

We are quick to identify change as an agent of fear, stress, or disappointment when it creates hardship in our lives, and these are legitimate feelings. But we are not being honest with ourselves if we think we can escape them by outrunning change and somehow finding a place to stand still. In my personal experience, I have found no evidence that such a place exists.

So how can we find more ease in this constant sea of change? We can start by abandoning our struggle to swim to shore, as its solidness is an illusion. Instead we can learn to float, riding the crest and trough of each wave as it passes. If we look to the horizon, there are endless waves headed in our direction. Instead of thrashing about, fighting to maintain our course, we could relax and be carried.

This doesn’t mean that we won’t get upset or sad or feel other strong emotions, but it means we keep them in perspective. We don’t create the expectation that we’ll be happy if we can just get to where we want to go. Instead, we feel whatever we are feeling and remember that it’s transient. We look around at where we are and see what we can appreciate about the place we are in. We remind each other that change is constant.

Sending Out an SOS

For several days last week I felt starkly unlike myself. I felt numb to most everything. It was as if I was no longer inside my body. The only time I felt like I was living my life was when I walked around the neighborhood with my dog–beyond that I felt like my life was living me. I was essentially a bystander instead of an active participant.

I felt some amount of accomplishment for not beating myself up further for feeling down, which is a behavior pattern I’m working to reset. Yet after a few days of experiencing these feelings and not quite knowing what to do about my funk, I text a good friend to ask if she had ever felt this way. She had, of course, and freely admitted it. Then she asked me a question of her own. “What is bringing you joy these days?”

I quickly wrote back, indicating that I didn’t have the time or resources for finding joy at the moment. I was on week three of an incredibly restrictive diet designed to identify food sensitivities, which basically left me hungry 24/7 and annihilated my social life. My schedule was also in shambles because my dog had moved back in with me after a year of living with my ex, and I’d been working a lot of extra hours to facilitate a move that my company was making to a new location. I rattled off these reasons to her without even thinking about them, because they were on my mind daily.

She replied, “It all sounds rather intense, Kate.”

I read her tiny text bubble twice. Then I reread my giant balloon. She was right. It did sound rather intense. When I actually paused to think about it, my routine and sense of normal had changed significantly in a short time. I was clearly in a period of transition. As I thought about how stressful change of any kind can be, two more recent examples popped into my mind.

My friend’s simple response gave me a fresh perspective on what I was going through–and it also gave me an idea. When I woke up the next morning, I made a list in my journal of all the changes I was experiencing. Then, for good measure, I added any major decisions I needed to make within the next two months. My final list had twelve items on it, from small things (failure to get to the gym) to significant things (did I mention the elimination diet?) to things that I thought were small but actually turned out to be significant (like a drastic new hairstyle that may or may not have been a mistake). Regardless of size or importance, I captured everything that was creating change in my life.

When I put down my pen and read through the list, I felt an immediate sense of relief. Now that the sources of upheaval were all on paper, I didn’t have to actively carry them in my mind every moment of the day. And now that it was all on paper, I could clearly see how my daily life had been disrupted and how that naturally created the disconnect I was feeling.

This exercise allowed me to look at myself with more kindness and compassion. I wanted to give myself some words of encouragement or a good hug, because that’s what I would do for any friend who recounted that list. By discovering and understanding the root of my feelings, I felt a glimmer of aliveness again. I made a small shift from bystander to participant. I even started to see the opportunities that could be found in this time of transition, if I could remain open to them.

So when you are having one of those days or weeks or months when you are feeling off, try not to be critical of yourself. The first step of the practice is to acknowledge our feelings and accept them as human and natural, whatever they may be. Then slowly, as we honestly dig deeper than our feelings, we can start to address the underlying issues that are the heart of the matter.

Come Up For Air

A few weeks ago I had an incredible opportunity to travel to Mexico with a conservation organization. I was drawn to the trip because it included whale watching in an area where gray whales frequently stop as they migrate up the coast. I had been whale watching once before in Oregon. Though I saw just one at a distance, I can easily remember how excited I was to see the spout shooting skyward.

So you can probably imagine the pure joy I felt when I saw my first gray whale spy hop from the ocean a mere fifty feet away, or the awe I felt when a whale surfaced alongside the boat and curled right underneath us, swimming so shallowly that I could see the barnacles clinging to its skin. The whales were beautiful, and for moments at a time my attention was captured by my senses–the sights, the sounds, the smells. Watching them I felt a humble mix of wonder, love, and camaraderie.

On my last day in Mexico, we were driving through a seemingly endless desert when I saw a small group of cows ahead. They were lying on the edge of the road, forcing the driver to perform an evasive maneuver. I was surprised and delighted to see these cows, and in my excitement I made some unintelligible exclamation (as I sometimes do). The guide turned around in his seat to look at me and laughed. He said, “You’re more excited about seeing cows than whales!” I laughed, too, because as I thought about his comment, he sort of had a point.

My daydreams about this trip had been saturated by my desire to see whales. What we saw or did the rest of the time didn’t really matter to me, so long as I had an experience with a whale. Yet the entire trip provided moments just as worthy of my rapt attention, like watching the sunrise over the mountains from the roof of the hotel or the sandpipers scurrying away from the waves on little stick legs that looked much too delicate for their bodies. If I had only paid attention to my number one priority, thinking that the rest wasn’t as important, I would have missed out on so many beautiful moments. I would have missed out on those sleepy cows, which I can honestly remember as vividly as the whales in all their majesty.

Yet how often do I do this in day-to-day life, so set on accomplishing one task that I miss out on the moments along the way? So determined to learn a song on the guitar that I don’t feel the way the sound cocoons me each time I play a note. So focused on willing my dog to poop before I leave for the day that I don’t notice the daffodils are starting to bloom. So fixated on getting dinner in the oven that I don’t notice the bright colors of the vegetables I am chopping.

Our rush to cross the finish line prevents us from experiencing where we are right now with focused attention. Instead one moment blurs into the next and the next until we accomplish the thing we set out to do, feeling a brief happiness in our achievement before setting our sights on a new destination and starting over. If we can slow down and give our attention to the entire journey, as if each moment matters, we can more fully experience our lives.

This might be easier to practice while on vacation in Mexico than at my office or the grocery store, but I’m still going to try. The number of moments in my life won’t change, but I’ll be present in more of them.

Love Is a Verb

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about love. Maybe it’s because I think this country needs it now more than ever. Maybe it stems from listening to John Mayer albums on repeat. Or perhaps my subconscious is just trying to remind me that I’m spending another Valentine’s Day alone. Regardless of the root of my obsession, I decided that the best approach to this enormous topic was to share the simple but impactful lessons my experiences have taught me about love.

When I got married at age twenty-five, I still had a hard time considering myself an adult but hearing my husband introduce me as his wife made my heart sing. I adored this man and loved him more than I had ever thought possible. I couldn’t believe that he wanted to spend his life with me, and I felt like the luckiest girl in the world. While I don’t think there is anything wrong with feeling this way, the problem was that my young self didn’t seem to have confidence in the opposite version of that statement–that my husband was so lucky that I had picked him.

Over time this imbalance in my thinking led to unhealthy relationship patterns. I started to think that being a good wife meant making my husband my number one priority and pushing my own needs aside. I thought that loving him meant that I had to give up some of the things that made me “me” in order to fit inside the “we” that we were creating. I thought I was being a generous wife by always considering my husband and what would make him happy, but I was actually becoming a very needy wife. With my focus on making him feel loved and appreciated, I lost touch with myself. I constantly sought his attention and approval, because I needed reassurance that I mattered. Meanwhile, I started to resent that my own needs weren’t being met.

There is more to the story, but fast forward nine years to when I found myself devastated and on my own. I started going to therapy regularly and reading books on mindfulness, relationships, and codependency in order to process what had happened. I forced myself to take a long, hard look at how I had contributed to the break down of my marriage.

In the midst of this messy and uncomfortable work, I discovered that I didn’t fully love and accept myself. This was a surprise to me, because if anyone had ever randomly stopped me on the street and asked me if I liked myself, I would have said yes. But as it turns out, I thought I had to prove myself because I didn’t believe in my own worth. I accepted people’s disrespect because I didn’t respect myself. My needs weren’t being met because I couldn’t identify them or ask for what I wanted.

I have often heard people say that before you can fully love others, you must learn to love yourself. As I started to understand my past and find healing, I recognized truth in this common adage. The key is that loving yourself is not a flippant “of course I love myself” kind of love but is a “creeping down the stairs to the darkest corner of the basement and making friends with what you bump into” kind of love. While easier said than done, making friends with myself and learning to love all my parts has changed how I relate to others.

When I accept myself without judgment–as is–I believe that I am wonderful exactly as I am. I feel less pressure to meet the expectations of others. I am able to be myself more authentically, which fosters deeper and more meaningful relationships.

When I respect myself, I prioritize relationships that are built on mutual respect and put less energy into those that aren’t. I make decisions based on what I want, not what someone else wants for me. I am better able to establish boundaries.

When I understand that I am responsible for meeting my needs, I feel comfortable spending time alone, pursuing my own passions, or practicing self-care without feeling guilty. By taking care of myself, I have the energy and enthusiasm to support others.

When I love myself unconditionally, I’m not constantly looking to others to meet this fundamental need. I no longer have to wildly chase or cling to someone else in order to feel loved. Yes, I want to connect with others and develop intimate relationships, but now I can approach these relationships from a place of wholeness and not from a place of lacking.  Instead of feeling resentful, I can truly give to the relationship with generosity.

This kind of love is work. It is hard work, my friends. I think it's supposed to be. As John Mayer so beautifully suggests, “Love ain’t a thing, love is a verb.”

Just Keep Swimming

One of the first entries in The Book of Awakening is titled "Life in the Tank." In it Mark Nepo writes an anecdote about the unexpected behavior of his friend’s fish. The friend put his fish in the bathtub temporarily while he scrubbed out their tank. When he was ready to put the fish back, he found that they had stayed in one small area of the tub, swimming in circles that were roughly the size of their little tank. The fish weren’t darting about–enjoying all that extra room–but had remained within the amount of space that was familiar. Observing this behavior, Mark Nepo penned some beautiful insights about how we as humans also confine ourselves to what we know, afraid to explore possibilities that may challenge our identities or expectations.

A tattered sticky note is hanging off that page, where years ago I enthusiastically scribbled my initial reaction to the passage:

Fearing life outside the tank makes your world small. Be open to the world around you and the possibilities it may present, even when it pushes you out of your comfort zone.

Reading these words again this past week, I felt a sweet sense of nostalgia for all the times in my life when I have been faced with the choice to remain comfortable in my small world or challenge my assumptions about myself. It was rarely ever an easy decision, but in hindsight it has always been worth it.

In my adolescent years, how I viewed myself was largely shaped by what my family, friends, and teachers thought of me. I unconsciously developed a particular identity and set of expectations about how I was supposed to act based on this input. I was smart. I was not an athlete. I was quiet. I was not a leader. I followed the rules. I was not a risk taker. I sulked instead of standing up for myself. I felt an obligation to meet the expectations of the adults in my life, not to follow my own desires. Whether or not these statements were true, I had come to believe them as facts about my teenage self.

Then I moved away from home to attend college. Suddenly I was dumped out of my little tank and into the bathtub. I left a town with a population of 11,000 to live in a city with 200,000 people. Instead of fifteen classes to choose from there were fifteen hundred. I was enrolled at a university with a diverse range of students from all over the world as opposed to my homogeneous high school. 

Feeling uncertain about my new surroundings and how I fit into them, I kept my head down and stuck to the facts. I was smart, I was quiet, and I followed the rules. I clung to my older brother and the friends from high school who were also attending the university. I quickly made a routine of class and studying, eating at the same cafeteria next to my dorm each day. I was swimming in little circles, even though there was so much space to explore.

I could have stayed in that small world until I graduated, but fortunately it didn’t take long for my curiosity to get the better of me. Feeling stunted by the small, predictable world I had organized, I was forced to consider that I might have my facts wrong. I started to notice interesting people and events on campus. I stopped trying to be invisible and made small talk with my classmates. I began to find opportunities to try new things that appealed to me at a deeper level than the “facts” I knew about myself. And as I did, the identity I had constructed for myself started to shift.

Maybe I wasn’t athletic, but I loved watching hockey and had always wished I had learned to play. So I joined a recreational ice hockey team. Maybe I wasn’t the type to break the rules, but I started going to parties and drinking with my new friends. Maybe the adults in my life thought I should be an engineer, but I applied for admittance to the elementary education program. Maybe the old labels didn't quite fit anymore, and it was time to listen to my own heart. It wasn't long before I was swimming laps around the whole bathtub.

And so it has happened time and time again in my life. Just when I start to get cozy with my ideas about who I am and how I engage with the world, I make a decision that throws me into a bigger tank. Whether it was moving across the country on my own, getting married, taking a new job, or living alone for the first time in my life, I can look back at each transition and see the opportunities it provided for me to question my assumptions about who I am and to explore who I want to be.

Along with a host of other things, I have realized that I am smart and moderately athletic. I am a quiet leader. I am the kind of person who speaks up when she or someone else is treated unfairly–most of the time. I make decisions based on what I want, not what others want for me.

I am both grateful and excited that who I am will constantly evolve, so long as I am willing to push myself to keep swimming.

Breaking Old Habits

Einstein is commonly credited with authoring a famous quote that the definition of insanity is doing the exact same thing over and over again while expecting different results. Yet we do this all the time in our daily lives and somehow manage to remain surprised about what happens when we repeatedly make the same decision.

For instance, every time I order a burrito my stream of thought goes something like this: “This burrito must weigh three pounds! There is no way I am going to eat this whole thing. I’ll eat half and save the rest for dinner.” Then I start devouring this delicious burrito that is full of all my favorite ingredients. I hit the halfway mark, but I’ve scarfed the burrito down so fast that my stomach has yet to register that it’s full. So I eat a little bit more, and soon it’s beginning to look like there’s really no point in saving the remainder for later–now I’ve got a burrito nubbin. I tell myself, “That’s not really enough for a second meal, and it doesn’t taste as good when it’s reheated anyway because the guacamole goes bad. I should probably just finish the whole thing so I don’t waste it.”

Even when there are just three bites left and my stomach has not only registered that it’s full but is now screaming at me to abort the burrito-completion mission, I still pack it in. And the rest of the day I regret it, because my stomach bloats to a size that could easily prompt a stranger to inquire about my due date. I feel heavy and uncomfortable, and I vow that I will never again eat the whole burrito in one sitting. But you can guess what happens the next time…

Now, this may say a little something about growing up with parents who forced you to clean your plate in order to leave the dinner table. But if I dig a little deeper, I find a similar behavior pattern in other parts of my life, where I somehow continue to do something even though it results in a negative consequence every time. It could be how I interact with a coworker, scheduling gym class on Friday night at 6 pm (like that’s going to happen), or how I react to heavier things.

As an example, I recently had a distraught moment (i.e. melt down) when I realized that I wanted more from a relationship than I could have. It’s quite painful to be close to someone when you want different things out of the relationship, and I was overwhelmed with sorrow for my situation.

No stranger to intense emotions at this point in my life, I immediately initiated my emergency response plan. I allowed myself to cry until I ran out of tears. I drew a hot bath (with a full tub, mind you–no holding back when you need to show yourself kindness!) and soaked until I was sufficiently calm. Then I took out my journal and honestly wrote about how I was feeling and how I might solve my problem.

That’s my typical plan of action when I’m struggling with difficult feelings, and I think it’s a healthy ritual. However, after I finished journaling that day I decided to read old journal entries that I had written exactly one year earlier. I read through detailed descriptions about what was happening, how I was feeling, what I wanted, and how I was reacting.

And that’s when I realized that I was insane–at least according to Einstein.

What I was writing about a year ago was the same exact struggle I was battling in the present. I wanted more from a relationship than was being offered. And I was dealing with it a year ago just like I was now: willing myself to be patient, trying to sit on my feelings and not force the conversations I needed, thinking that if I could just be the best version of myself that I would be seen. Same actions, same results. Red eyes, wasteful bathing, and hand cramps.

Well, my friends, I have decided that’s it’s insane to keep acting insane. I now recognize the cycle I have unknowingly been participating in; running into a wall, denying that it’s there, and all the while wondering why I’m not getting anywhere.

Awareness is the first step. That’s the good news! Once you are aware of your automatic behaviors, you can choose to continue what you’ve always done or try something new. I can (a) stuff the whole burrito into my belly; (b) stop ordering burritos; or (c) cut the burrito in two, wrap the second half in foil, and put it at the bottom of my purse where I won’t be able to find it for at least 8 minutes (because it’s impossible to find anything in my purse), giving me time to decide if I really need to eat that second half. I have clear choices now, because I have identified an unconscious pattern in my behavior. 

Now I get to discover what will happen when I choose a different action, however difficult that may be. I encourage you to examine where you feel stuck and to see if perhaps you might be experiencing a touch of insanity, too. 

You Can't Always Get What You Want

I was raised to believe that if I worked hard enough, I could achieve anything. This statement–repeated overtly to me in my early years as fact more than aspiration–has proven true in my thirty-some years of life experience. I devoted more time to studying than most, and I earned straight A’s from first grade through college. (Okay, okay…there was that one B in penmanship in fourth grade.) As a veterinary nurse at an animal hospital, I initiated several improved processes that led to my promotion to supervisor. I wanted to become a yoga teacher, so I spent twenty hours a week in a training program while working full-time at my real job.

Yet despite my track record of success with this maxim, I’ve finally had to acknowledge that not everything in life can be overcome by sheer force of will and applied effort. I fought harder for my marriage than I have ever fought for anything in my life, yet it didn’t survive. But in the process I learned countless other important lessons about how to be a better partner, friend, and human.

I learned that it’s okay to be vulnerable, to let myself cry in front of people, and to be honest about how I’m feeling instead of putting on a brave, happy face.

I learned to ask for help. Then I practiced accepting help when it was offered, without letting my pride and ego get in the way.

I learned to let myself be angry–to explode with anger sometimes. I learned to accept my outbursts of intensity without judging myself for them. I eventually learned appropriate ways to express my anger and that it often stemmed from my lack of boundaries. I learned that a few minutes of very loud shouting can cause laryngitis.

I learned to trust. I learned to trust in my intuition because my mind prefers denial. I learned to trust in the goodness of other people and that the messy events of the past two years were necessary for whatever comes next in my life.

I learned that no one can read my mind. I learned that it is my responsibility to ask for what I want. I learned to stop feeling guilty for having wants and needs.

I learned that I’m not responsible for how other people feel. I’m responsible for my own feelings and for having kind and honest intentions when I communicate with others.

I learned to listen and to keep listening even when I don't like what I hear. I learned to let painful words hang in the air without shutting down or becoming defensive. I learned to listen to my partner’s perception–entirely different than my own–and accept that neither one was right.

I learned to say, “I’m sorry.” I practiced saying it without justifying my actions or making excuses. I learned to examine my words and actions and make an apology when one was needed. I learned how powerful this short little phrase can be.

I learned to forgive and forgive again. I practiced forgiving even when I didn’t receive an apology. I learned that practicing forgiveness without establishing boundaries is an invitation to be hurt again. I learned to forgive myself for my own mistakes, which was the hardest of all.

I learned to love, despite all the obstacles. I had the opportunity to love deeply and openly even when walls were thrown up and doors slammed in my face. I learned that love is not static nor is it just a feeling­–it’s also a choice. Sometimes it’s an easy choice and sometimes it’s a grueling one, but it’s a choice that I make day by day, moment by moment.

When I look back on this period in my life, I feel conflicting emotions. There’s been so much sadness and disappointment, but the pain has been a catalyst for curiosity, introspection, and growth. Until now, I’d always been able to get what I wanted by being persistent and working hard. What I wanted was to save my marriage; what I got was totally unexpected and maybe exactly what I needed. 

Starting Over

Like many people, as the end of December draws near I am already looking forward to the new year ahead. I'm imagining all of the things I want to accomplish during my next trip around the sun. The close of the year is a natural time to pause and reflect on where I am, to figure out where things are going right and where I want to make changes.

There's something special about starting a new year that gives us permission to be gentler with ourselves. Sure, I wanted to learn another language this year. I also wanted to paint my bathroom and travel abroad and run a 10k. The fact that I didn't tackle (or even make progress toward!) these goals has been quietly nagging me all year. But not anymore. It's 2016! I get to start over. I can sincerely let my failed attempts go because it's the one time of year when we all agree to wipe our slates clean. 

But are we really only allowed that magical eraser once a year?

I heard "Grace" by the October Project at a restorative yoga workshop a few weeks back. The class was being offered to volunteers who work with disadvantaged populations, introducing yoga and the coping skills it offers to youth and adults who have experienced trauma in their lives. The dynamics in these classrooms are often quite difficult and unexpected. As a volunteer yoga teacher I often feel ineffective, wondering if any part of what I am trying to communicate is being received. 

At the workshop, my teacher played "Grace" as a reminder of not just the opportunity but the obligation we each have to wipe our slate clean, moment by moment. Maybe our actions didn't have the results we intended. Maybe we said something we wish we could take back or say a different way. Maybe that's okay. The real work is to stop dwelling on our missteps and instead accept that we do the best we can in each moment. Maybe our best doesn't feel good enough, but it's all we have. And in the next moment, we might know a little better. We might do better.

Now in this moment
It's time to start over
Open your heart
You know there's nothing to forgive

The lyrics of "Grace" remind me that every moment can be my own personal New Year's Day. I don't have to wait for an annual celebration to give myself permission to accept where I am–off track and all–and move forward. I get the opportunity to start over hundreds of times each day.