Stop. Realise. Listen. Take note of what you are teaching yourself. Are you conscious of what you are saying quietly, behind closed lips, eyes open but oh so loud inside? Our inner dialogue is our greatest critic, our greatest teacher, our worst enemy and our best friend. We have a million and one dialogues with ourselves daily and my enquiry here is towards what are we really teaching or telling ourselves?
During my morning practice I was working on Bakasana / Crow pose and while I was making sure I was engaging in all the right areas, lifting, pressing and rounding where I should be, there in the background behind all this instruction was the voice of insecurity. You are not strong enough. You are weak. You can’t hold yourself here because of your wrist etc. I seriously did not need this!
When you hear this voice of discouragement do you succumb and let it take charge of you in that situation or do you gleefully ignore it and continue on? Consciously teaching and guiding myself through this strong pose was more than enough to deal with? I was not going to give this voice of negativity any of my time or energy.
I can be pretty headstrong at times but equally so can these voices of uncertainty. Within yoga we develop a strong relationship of trust with ourselves and know what we are capable of and where our strengths lie. So I forge on through and I managed to break through this barrier of self-doubt and illusion and made progress.
Doing a little bit of something each day is better than not doing anything at all, right? If I can change one negative thought pattern into a positive one and experience a tiny break through then my future looks brighter and I am beginning to cut the power source to the ego which is blocking me from embracing success. Not that embodying Bakasana is a sign of success, after all the asanas were created to help us sit comfortably in meditation. Bakasana was my tool this morning that enabled me to reflect on this experience of stopping, realising and listening deeper to the conversation I was having with my cells. I made a conscious choice to tune in, then tune out, realign and continue on.
A little bit of gratitude goes a long way. Gratitude for what our bodies are capable of, gratitude for what we have right now and gratitude for being able to chose a negative pathway or a positive one. Each time I make progress in my practice or progress along my path I celebrate with a happy dance, an inner smile or a wide embrace to the sky – yes! Let’s give more time to the moments and situations that make us happy and less to the draining, non-supportive and boring inner dialogue.
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