This year I decided to challenge myself to reflect on various Yoga and Buddhist aspects throughout the year. The challenges come from a variety of places including readings in Deborah Adele's Yamas and Niyamas and Thich Nhat Hanh's Heart of the Buddha's Teaching and Happiness.
This week's challenge was to spend the entire week in self-expression. Okay, I admit, I felt this was almost a week off. I already spend so much of my time in self-expression.
Not everyone gets to do what they love for a living. In realizing how often I am able to express myself fully, I found myself intensely grateful this week. Grateful I live in such an amazing country where I have so many opportunities and so little hardship. Grateful that I have loving friends and family who support me in all I do. And deeply, profoundly grateful that I get to teach Yoga asana and meditation for a living.
I was asked to look at the difference between self-expression and self-indulgence and it was interesting to watch. I admit I spent some of the week in self-indulgence. It felt like I was still expressing me, just not the best me I could.
Interestingly, when I did find that I might not be self-expressing it came down to a feeling that I needed to be someone different than me, which took me quickly back to the Week 4 challenge, and I left myself be authentically me, regardless of the consequences.
How did I feel? I felt "me", fully at home in my body and spirit. And how did others react? I feel I connect with people better when I connect with myself better and that was what I continued to observe this week.
