Less Serious

Man oh man I sure have taken myself far too seriously for far too long! Trying to be good at things, trying to succeed, trying to impress... I mean I'm not saying I should work hard but I took myself so seriously that even my play-time started to feel like work.

If I am going to get old and if I am going to have wrinkles, maybe that age and those wrinkles should come from smiles, laughter, fun...



Interestingly enough, when I started my push to take myself less seriously, I included that demand even in my teaching. I began to try to have more fun while teaching, have more fun while doing yoga. Somehow I think that my students are having fun too... even if they're just laughing at my cheesy jokes. As I tell people to move into harder and harder poses that sometimes are not possible for our bodies at the current moment, I remind them that it is sometimes enough to just imagine the pose. It kind of reminds me of the expectations I have of myself. I expect myself to do everything and always succeed... when we're trying to push right up into a handstand from standing splits or find a tricky arm balance that we've never done before, I start to appreciate the possibility rather than the outcome, the journey rather than the destination, the route rather than the summit. In fact, the humbling nature of doing something that is quite a bit out of our reach takes some of the pressure off of the failure... after all, we don't actually expect ourselves to be able to do it. Then maybe, just maybe, we can have fun just trying!