I am currently undertaking a six-week yoga journey, which entails six days a week of yoga, daily meditation and healthy eating, including a five-day cleanse. I am embarking on the final week of the journey.
Revisiting my original mission, which I wrote five weeks ago, “My goals for the course are to encourage balance, happiness, wellbeing and relaxation in my life.”
Going into week six, the theme is to ‘live free’ – with a 30 minute per day meditation practice, in addition to the yoga. However, as the course guide says, “you may discover that the positive results of the journey are not founded in the number of times you came to your mat, nor your ability to stay on track every single day by following all guidelines. Perfection was never a pre-requisite for this program.
“Can you trust that the level of engagement you offered yourself through this period was exactly what you needed? No more, no less.”
This is an exact metaphor for life. So many times, we compare ourselves to others and think we’ve failed on the basis of not having “made it” to a level that we think is the “perfect” thing; the “perfect” place to be in.
Yet, the most perfect place to be in is exactly the one we are in.
The biggest lesson this journey has taught me, is to never, ever compare my journey to others’. I have said it before to myself, and yet now, I’m really saying it. There is no comparison to anyone else. You know how far you’ve come, and only you. There is no one and nothing else you can compare youself to. It’s pointless, because it means nothing unless it means something to you.
Creating a comparison outside of yourself means constructing a fake reality and setting yourself up for failure and disappointment.
The biggest thing this yoga project has taught me is to have faith in where I am right now, and to challenge myself where I need to be challenged – without taking into account the inevitably disappointing comparisons with others, that generally stall us in our own progress.
I realize now that one of the biggest obstacles I have come up against in life, is myself. I have always looked around at others and reflected back my own perceived weaknesses. Now, having made this realisation, I can look at others with compassion because I realize that we are all on the same journey: to be free from our own self-judgements.
We reflect the same level of compassion outwards as what we place on ourselves, and previously I think that I was fairly harsh on myself, and therefore on others.
Now, I can honestly say that I practice a whole new level of compassion upon myself and therefore upon others.
This is a lifelong pursuit – it’s not something that a six-week yoga project can teach. And yet, I think I might finally be on the right track.
When have you been too harsh on yourself?
