Recovering from myself, again

moving through unconcious self inflicted pressure

Four weeks ago, I finished a year long advanced yogi training. I put all my heart and soul into it and put a lot of pressure on myself to do it well. I keep on wondering if I can ever move through life without this unconcious stress on myself?

I do it all the time— when I am facilitating a workshop, being interviewed, doing a presentation— when I feel “on” and that I can’t lose the careful attention I am holding. I know I am not pretending or acting, I just have a bit of a labored breath, a bit of tension in the shoulders, I may have blocks in processing the information clearly until I am in the quiet of my home, hours later, recalibrating what was discussed.

In reflection, I am excited in the moment of being “on” and my mind is flowing from insight to insight. Then, I feel like my mind jumps to question everything I am doing. It likes to doubt my comments, convinctions and actions. It likes to squealch that little secret voice that says answer this way or how about you take a break right now? or use this to look at that more simply?

I guess I need to laugh at myself a bit and take in the fact that I know what a full, long breath is and that at times of challenges, I do rise to the occasion— consistantly. I also love putting myself “out there” and learning something new from every interaction I have. In a way, I think you have to lose yourself to dig to the essence of who you are to remember who you are to uplift yourself into the integration of a new version of yourself.

I am now such a different teacher and human. I have more of what I have always offered with a deeper, locked in focus and awareness of my presentation, pacing. Its helped me develop a more profound sense to listen to myself and trust in my intution. There is bright light in all the molecules. Springtime is such a reminder of the transformation of something gone to something blooming into the cresecendo of its highest self. All this as a reminder to myself to reaquaint me with me and none of this was in the curriculmn taught.

Then I have to laugh at myself all over again, because I seem to reach these milestones and I don’t even know how to truly celebrate them. Goal done. Check. Okay what is next. I have been writing that line in my journal a lot lately.

Maybe it’s more about just being confident in my convictions? Being a yogi and artist and a human means you have to be true to yourself. I could say it’s about integrating my mind and my heart. I could say it’s about shutting out or tending to that wound within. But I feel like I am just dropping a bit. Here’s me taking a load off and allowing myself to float. Allowing artful play. What does that look like to you?